Amazon Sells IPAQs for $10

TomHoward writes "In a pretty huge blunder, amazon.co.uk have put the HP IPAQ H1910 (RRP about £300) for sale for just over £7.32 (plus postage and packing). It's very hard to get through to their site right now, but if you're quick you can have a look at their blunder here." Don't bother clicking through, Amazon has taken the items down.

Comments

Honor

[yoey]

Amazon.com should honor any sale that was made while the price was still up. Yeah, right....

But still, it would be a very cool gesture.

Re:Honor

[junklight]

Amazons terms and conditions state that until they ship the goods to you NO contract exists. Therefore they do not have to do anything. Plus they won a case about this in the states plus they say clearly on the site that the won't honor this kind of mistake.

SO - why should they honor any mistake like this again?

Re:Honor

[WIAKywbfatw]

In the UK, under the Sale Of Goods Act and other legislation covering purchases (either in the high street, by mail order or online), Amazon has one of two options: either honour the advertised price or not sell the goods at all.

The legislation is designed to protect both the purchaser and the vendor. If you went into a store and saw a widescreen 32in. TV priced at £900 instead of £1,000, then the store would be bound into selling it to you at that price or not at all. They couldn't turn around and say, "sorry, the price is £100 more, pay the full £1,000 if you wan't it", but they could refuse to sell it to you.

In most cases, where the difference is still within their profit margin and practical, stores tend to honour the lower price. However, where there's been an honest mistake, such as that £1,000 TV being mispriced at £100, they almost invariably take the option of refusing to sell the item.

The courts (where civil action has been taken) have taken a "common sense" approach. Getting a £1,000 TV for only £900 is a reasonable expectation (in a sale, promotion, etc) but getting it for £100 is highly unreasonable. Basically, where the pricing might be deceiving they tend to favour the purchaser and where the pricing is obviously a genuine mistake they tend to favour the vendor.

Generally, it's a very good system. However, I do remember reading about an old lady somewhere in the US (Texas perhaps?) who went into her local car dealership with a bunch of oversized bananas and bought a brand new car with them. The dealership had advertised their new models on radio as being available for "only xx big bananas", ("big bananas" being local slang for $1,000), and having to honour the sale after a court decision found in favour of the old woman.

Re:Honor

[oniony]

The legislation is designed to protect both the purchaser and the vendor. If you went into a store and saw a widescreen 32in. TV priced at £900 instead of £1,000, then the store would be bound into selling it to you at that price or not at all. They couldn't turn around and say, "sorry, the price is £100 more, pay the full £1,000 if you wan't it", but they could refuse to sell it to you.

But that's before the sale is agreed. My commitment to make payment via credit card should be looked as a contract. If Amazon did not provide a cancellation service, then I would not be able to back out of the purchase legally. Why should Amazon be able to back out?

I reckon every successful purchaser (like me) should get together and start a website. We all sue Amazon then it would be more cost effective to just give us the PDAs (or a pay off) than to fight umpteen different cases in court.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus they won a case about this in the states plus they say clearly on the site that the won't honor this kind of mistake.

This is in the UK. Why would anyone care what had been found in some US case? If anything that's likely to encourage a court towards the opposite opinion; we've seen your legal system.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

I managed to successfully get my order confirmed, but the conditions say until the order is dispatched no contract exists.

I also got one of the far superior H5450s advertised at £27 which all of the online news articles have neglected to mention.

So it looks like I won't be getting one, doh.

Re:Honor

[Gwylan]

That's not quite true. Without being too lawyerish about this, the price offered is considered as an invitation to treat and NOT a contract, offering to buy at this price is an acceptance of this offer but is still not a contract. However, if the shop (in this case Amazon) accepts this then a contract has been made. There was a similar case, where a webiste put cheap TVs and were deluged with buyers. In that case, the automatic responses were deemed to have legally agreed the price so the electrical store had to honour the agreement and flog the TVs for a £1 (or whatever). If in this case, Amazon has sent a "Thank you for your order message" that could serve as agreeing to contract. Whatever happens - it will be the lawyers who win.

Re:Honor

[TummyX]

I reckon every successful purchaser (like me) should get together and start a website.


Why? You *surely* knew it was a mistake on their behalf. You weren't "tricked" in anyway.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

Carbolic Smoke Balls, Baby!

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

If Amazon did not provide a cancellation service, then I would not be able to back out of the purchase legally. Actually, you would. http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/brow se/-/help/1161020/202-7941203-1526251

Re:Honor

[FatalTourist]

I had an intelligent reply but I spent too long looking for the £ key so I forgot what it was. Then I realized I could just copy and paste it.
*sigh*

Re:Honor

[froth]

Haha.. that is because we are all gun carrying hustlers here in the U.S. So you better watch out because if we don't hustle you we will definatly shoot you.

Re:Honor

[91degrees]

I agree. Hell, I'll try my luck, and might even kick up a fuss if they refuse to honour it to see if I can get a gift voucher or something from them, but I'm not going to claim I deserve anything.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll just abuse a customer service representative in the hopes of a coupon-- not because you deserve it but because you think you might be able to get it out of them. How noble of you.

Re:Honor

[91degrees]

I'm not claiming it's noble. Just a piece of negotiation. I'm not claiming I owe them any favours here.

Their entire business model is based on getting as much from me as they are legally able. I therefore have no qualms about doing as much as possible to get as much as possible for them as I can legally manage.

Re:Honor

[91degrees]

Nothing noble about it. They have no obligation to give me anything. They aren't going to unless they think they can make a profit from it. I'm not going to pretend I'm legally entitled to anything.

Hell, theiur entire business model is based on getting as much out of me as they can. I therefore have no qualms about giving them as little as I can manage.

Re:Honor

[tim_bissell]

>This is in the UK. Why would anyone care what had
>been found in some US case? If anything that's
>likely to encourage a court towards the opposite
>opinion; we've seen your legal system.

And anyway, they would have to honour the price, not honor it.

Re:Honor

[DaBunny]

But Amazon does allow you to cancel a purchase before it's been shipped. I've done so. From their help page:

It's easy to cancel items from an order you placed at Amazon.com, provided that the order has not yet entered the shipping process.

If we can recognize you as a customer with any unshipped orders, you will see a box to the right. Click the relevant link in that box to visit the order summary page. (If you do not see that box, sign in to Your Account, and select the order you wish to alter.)

Once you've reached the order summary, click the "Need to cancel an item?" button. On the next page, click the checkbox next to any item you want to cancel. Be sure to click the "Cancel checked items" button when you are finished.

So to reverse your question: Since they *do* allow their customers to do that, why shouldn't they be allowed to do so?

Re:Honor

[luzrek]

According to the Amazon.co.uk user agreement no contract exists until the purchaser receives an e-mail saying that the goods have been shipped. In other words, Amazon.co.uk isn't legally bound to sell you the goods for that price until they have shipped it. Additionally, the "prices may change at any time without notice" clause should let them fix this mistake. Fortunately, I don't think that Amazon will ship the 100+ that someone surely bought at the 15$ price at the correct price. The will probably send the customer an e-mail about the mistake.

It is also my understanding that if the price is an obvious mistake it is not valid. In the Kodak case about a year ago, Kodak had to cough up the cameras because it was marked as a special offer. Apparently the super-low price on the IPAQ was not labeled as a special offer in any way. I think this rule exists to protect shops from ticket-switchers.

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

wife found and purchased an 800 dollar color printer (nice big hp one that does 17" paper) about 2 years ago(?) from some place (can't rem now) for 80 bucks. they skipped a couple decimal points :}

I told her it'd never make it here. this was on a friday. monday AM, bright and early, this huge box showed up at my door. by wednesday, I'm getting this voice call from some guy from the company "ASKING" me to return the printer. I got pissed, then realized, he was ASKING, not ORDERING. Told him, no, thanks, it's a really nice present from you.... :}

Receipt of the product and them cashing in our money was all it took. if either of those were not there, then they could have totally reneged on it.

Btw, I don't have any regrets or any moments of conscience about the whole thing. They can consider that a learning lesson that they need to filter their web software a bit better and keep up to speed on it or things like this will definately happen again and hit their bottom line AGAIN. :}

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

How much is that in real money?

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

ok ive set up a petition i didnt have time to register

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cg i? ne1am4

can be viewed there

peace

Carl

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

I had an intelligent reply but I spent too long looking for the £ key so I forgot what it was.

Why didn't you just use the # key?

*ducks*

Re:Honor

[oniony]

Because they chose to offer me a 'right' beyond my legal rights. I did not choose to offer them a reciprocal right (unless it's in the terms and conditions). It's up to both parties to choose during the lead up to a formal contract what the terms will be. Amazon offered me the right to cancel as they thought that would make the audience more likely to purchase with them i.e. they thought that the (long term) cost of offering this right is less than not to do so.

I didn't choose to offer them the right to change their mind about the price as I didn't have the facility or the need (they would have sold to me whether I offered that right or not).

Anyhow, I'm soon to read the T+C so it could be I did offer them that right in the T+C I accepted when I placed my order -- it could be that Amazon decided what rights I'd offer them as part of the condition of selling to me. That I'm going to find out. All I do know is that they sent me what, in their own words, they called a 'contract' so I feel we are both legally bound to the sale now -- i.e. I owe them 80 quid, they owe me 10 iPaqs.

Re:Honor

[oniony]

Ticket switching is not a problem. A price on a ticket is just an 'offer to treat'. Both parties must agree to the sale at an agreed price (and other conditions) before it is contractually binding. I'm not a lawer, solicitor or otherwise law savvy but I know that I agreed to commit my money and they committed to sending me 10 iPaqs...they sent me a 'contract' by email stating that.

I'm not expecting to receive a large, juicy box of iPaqs so I won't be going blue from holding my breath. However, I do expect an appology from Amazon (that I won't be getting my order) and financial compensation of some sort -- as a goodwill gesture and pacifier.

It is fairly trivial to implement sale throttling and alerting on mispriced products. The fact that they haven't means they should be in some way responsible for this mishap. The quantity of orders should not factor into it.

Re:Honor

[DaBunny]

The subject line of the comment was "Honor" and the case made was that Amazon's right should be equivalent to their customers. I pointed out that they do extend an equivalent right.

Of course what you and they *should* honorably do has nothing to do with what's legally required. However, I think your inspection of the T&C will find that there's no contract until they ship (which is also when they bill your credit card).

Re:Honor

[Anonymous Coward]

At long last, amazon have cleared it all up. A glimmer of hope was always there!

J.

Dear Customer

Greetings from Amazon.co.uk.

We are writing to inform you that the price of the following item was
incorrect at the time of placing your order, and we hope that we can
clear up any misunderstanding:

"HP iPAQ H1910 Pocket PC"

Despite our best efforts, with the millions of items available on our
Web site, pricing errors can occasionally occur.

In accordance with our Conditions of Web Site Use and our Pricing and
Availability Policy, please know that we will be cancelling all affected
orders. If you still wish to purchase this item, please place a new order
online which will be charged at the correct price.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008W 5U T/

Please note that you have not been charged for this item.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused by this
error, and rest assured that we will continue to make every effort to
maintain the accuracy of all prices on our site.

We hope you will find this an acceptable solution and look forward to
serving you again in the future.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.co.uk

In other words....

[Gortbusters.org]

Don't both /.'ing Amazon.

I would have preferred the CLIE anyway. Did anyone actually make it to one of these bargain bloopers before it went down?

Re:In other words....

[Gortbusters.org]

*bother

Re:In other words....

[matt_oj]

managed to order six to qualify for free delivery...

Re:In other words....

[StarKruzr]

Will you let me know what happens with this order? I'm extremely curious about whether or not they honor it - and I'd be willing to buy one off you for an appropriate price :D

Re:In other words....

[cybercomm]

Will you let me know what happens with this order? I'm extremely curious about whether or not they honor it - and I'd be willing to buy one off you for an appropriate price :D</i>

I am also extremely interested wether such large transnational companies will honor such a request. Oh and if you end up having a couple left over, i would also be willing to get one off'ya for an appropriate price :P

Re:In other words....

[matt_oj]

Greetings from Amazon.co.uk.

We are writing to inform you that the price of the following item was
incorrect at the time of placing your order, and we hope that we can
clear up any misunderstanding:

"HP iPAQ H1910 Pocket PC"

Despite our best efforts, with the millions of items available on our
Web site, pricing errors can occasionally occur.

In accordance with our Conditions of Web Site Use and our Pricing and
Availability Policy, please know that we will be cancelling all affected
orders. If you still wish to purchase this item, please place a new order
online which will be charged at the correct price.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008W 5U T/

Please note that you have not been charged for this item.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused by this
error, and rest assured that we will continue to make every effort to
maintain the accuracy of all prices on our site.

We hope you will find this an acceptable solution and look forward to
serving you again in the future.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.co.uk

I would have ordered one...

[mstrjon32]

but the postage and packing from the UK would have put me back whatever I would have saved.....

Re:I would have ordered one...

[2GooD]

They only deliver electronics to the UK and Ireland.

Re:I would have ordered one...

[ehiris]

You could have bought a plane ticket to London and back for the money you would have saved.

Hmm

[Alranor]

I wonder how many Mr TomHoward ordered before he submitted the article. :)

Re:Hmm

[ginxd]

I've got my 4 in the post! :D probably will never turn up! :(

Re:Hmm

[TomHoward]

I tried and failed as the site was just too busy to complete the transaction ;(

A couple of friends of friends who tipped us off reported that they where able to place orders and even got confirmation emails.

Won't even be honored

[Uninvited Guest]

Amazon has said before that these things happen, and they won't honor orders for honest price mistakes.

Re:Won't even be honored

[codezion]

Amazon has said before that these things happen, and they won't honor orders for honest price mistakes.

But other (sites) honor orders for "honest" price mistakes and even advertise it on their front page!

(I'll let you determine how honest it truely is.)

-- CodeZion

Re:Won't even be honored

[Anonymous Coward]

Their Ts&Cs cover it as well, but I still reckon they might get fucked in an english court because there is also such a thing as "unfair" conditions in a contract - being able to say "the deal is only on after we dispatch the goods" could easily fall foul of that I reckon.

link already down...

[obli]

Just out of curiosity... If I ordered one when it was still up with that low price, would they have to send me one at that price anyway?

In related news

[Foxman98]

In a pretty huge blunder, slashdot.org have put the "HP IPAQ H1910 (RRP about £300) for sale for just over £7.32 (plus postage and packing)." story up for its readers to digest. It's very easy to get through to amazon's site, and the item ain't even there anymore. Don't bother discussing, Slashdot shouldve have taken the story down.

Re:In related news

[goetz]

I think partly it's the vicariously experience that makes this story interesting.

Mistakes like these are out there - you just have to find it and hope the vendor will go along with it. I have a friend who got a flat panel LCD monitor from Amazon that usually goes for about $700, for $150. Amazon actually honored the transaction!

The differences with this story are probably (1) the price markdown to 2% is way too drastic for a vendor to honor (that would bring the term "bargain hunter" to a whole new level), and (2) if you find a minor blunder to take advantage of, sharing the love with the rest of world probably isn't a good idea. At least not before you get the product! (-;

Re:In related news

[jkrise]

In a major blunder, Microsoft leaked copies of Service Pack 2.1b for the ShortShrift Operating System. The OS itself is due to be released only late 2004. The Service Pack fixes about 231 blunders in the LongHorn a.k.a ShortShrift OS.

Steve Boiler explained the rationale: Frequently, we are criticised for long delays in fixing bugs in our code. As part of our Secure Computing Initiative, we now write Service Packs first, before writing the code. This helps us to solve problems faster than the Open Source Community.

The Service Pack has since been taken down, but the new OS is expected to be leaked shortly.

Re:In related news

[FeloniousPunk]

Whoever posted this story must have wanted Amazon to see their mistake and take action fast. A good /.'ing gets management's attention a lot faster than a letter from a concerned customer.
Why someone would want to do that is beyond me, unless they had Amazon stock or something like that.

Re:In related news

[TopShelf]

At the least they could start a new category for these stories "Web Blunders", so we can put them on ignore...

Re:In related news

[BohemianCoast]

Occasionally these things are honoured. When people were chasing the Wharfedale DVD around Tesco's (a UK supermarket chain), someone spotted one with the shelf price marked at £1.79 instead of £179. Tesco's has a policy of honouring shelf price markings; and they did. Gave the chap his DVD player for £1.79, and the 1 reward point he was entitled to.

Re:In related news

[GeckoX]

Sure, possibly funny in the right context, but this ain't it! Just a totally offtopic MS bash, and it gets modded funny, go figure. Just another day at /.

Re:In related news

[netsharc]

What one reward point is that, the one they took off between the 1 and the 7? Hehe.

Advertisement

[sploxx]

This is just another form of advertisement. See how many vistors amazon.com attracts... even a slashdot story pops up :)

Someone Goofed

[TedCheshireAcad]

Wow...some programmer has his balls in the vice for that one.

Re:Someone Goofed

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because Amazon always pays its coders to key in product information. Its just their thing.

Re:Someone Goofed

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the programmer... the data entry staff (or maybe the person who wrote up the article originally)!

I hate when the programmer gets blamed because the client doesn't know how to use the system, or they make an entry mistake.

"Why didn't the system tell me the price was wrong?"

Re:Someone Goofed

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously - why didn't the system tell them the price was wrong? Somewhere in their systems, they'll have the wholesale price they paid for the thing stored. Why couldn't it check the public price against the wholesale price and flag it up if you were offering the thing at a loss? Perhaps even have only a couple of people authorised to mark stuff at more than a saving of 10% from cost, to allow for "crazy one-time promotions" to be entered while stopping stuff like this?

You see, it is the coders fault.

Re:Someone Goofed

[YrWrstNtmr]

At some point in the chain, a human has to fatfinger a number in. The original wholesale price, the retail price, whatever.

A mistake such as this could happen anywhere along the line.

Re:Someone Goofed

[oniony]

User error ;)

Re:Someone Goofed

[zackbar]

Sure, as long as they want to pay the programmers to develop those checks. But they probably didn't want to budget for it.

Even if they do code that in, it would have to account for marketing costs, administration costs, and all other costs before they could accurately reflect the minimum they could sell it for.

Then, of course, they would have to deal with the various types of wholesale costs. The product might not have a fixed cost. They might pay less for the item if they sell more. I don't know if they have that kind of deal, but car dealers do. The more cars they sell, the less they pay for each. So the wholesale price would change depending on how many have been sold.

Or, they might get a group lot of them in, and only pay for the lot. Another lot they get in might have a different wholesale price. They could average the price, but that gets hard to do when they get in new lots at different prices regularly.

Re:Someone Goofed

[FeloniousPunk]

Wow...some programmer has his balls in the vice for that one.
You mean data entry clerk.

Re:Someone Goofed

[jabuzz]

Not really, a basic check would be if retail is less than wholesale complain loudly to the person setting the price and require confirmation from them that is more than a simple click on a button.

It does not stop you making any mistake, but it does limit the size of any losses you are going to make. Besides which you could change it to retail having to be more than wholesale plus 10%, or whatever is relevant.

Re:Someone Goofed

[zackbar]

Someone still has to code that into the system, and then someone else still has to enter the wholesale price correctly.

Even if the wholesale price doesn't change regularly, so that the per unit wholesale price is reasonably static, it still requires that someone enter the wholesale price initially.

There would then have to be checks that test that the wholesale price was entered correctly. Anytime you have data entry, you have potential for error.

Even one check requires that someone write the lookup code. This requires a project manager to actually think it important enough to include it as a task. If it crosses application systems, which I guarantee you it does, (the sales system has to access the purchasing system, and each system is a different department with different management, even if all systems are on the same hardware), then you have to deal with politics and have meetings and discussions to get people to agree on how it will be done.

This all costs time & money. Some department will have to be charged for it. No one wants to pay for it, so it doesn't get done.

I saw something like this at a client years ago. The mainframe had something like 4 cpu's, and they needed more. Problem was, all the software on the mainframe was licensed for up to 4 cpu's. Get one more cpu, and someone would have to pay for the next level of licenses for everything. The policy required that whichever department paid for the new cpu would have to pay for the licenses too.

Needless to say, they never upgraded. The limped along for years trying to get away without buying more processors. They could have had several of the profitable departments agreeing to divide of the costs, but no one did.

Oh no, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to click that link if it's the last thing I do!

Argos

[Inda]

We had the same thing happen with Argos and TVs some time last year. Argos never honoured their commitment to sell cheap TVs though. They are the ones who have the final say in the matter; there is nothing to say that they must sell anything.

Re:Argos

[Captain Pedantic]

The defence used by companies is that if the price is obviously unreasonable, then it isn't a valid sale. In the Argos case, £299 TVs were sold for £2.99. No one in their right mind would think that was a valid price.

However, there was a similar case where Kodak were selling cameras for "a very special price", I think a £360 camera went for £180. In this case, it was much harder to claim that the price was an "obvious mistake".

I would provide links for these above cases, but I'm lazy. Some karma starved /.er can track them down if he wants.

Re:Argos

[zackbar]

This happens regularly. Some stores will honor the mistake just to generate goodwill. Others don't honor it and generate some badwill.

This sort of thing is why certain sites have "Price Mistake Of The Day" as a marketing technique.

Order sent

[Anonymous Coward]

So I was one of the first few to order one of the H1910s as the thing went out on our list first. I got the confirmation email. I ordered the H5450 too, got that confirmation email. Combined the orders, got that email.

I'd imagine they won't honour the orders as there's all kinds of boilerplate about Amazon not considering it a contract until they debit your account and dispatch the goods.

I'm expecting:

a) Nothing
b) An apology
c) A gift voucher and an apology
d) 1(one) Ipaq per person, if you ordered both then the cheaper one
e) 1(one) of each Ipaq if you ordered both

As it is a mate from Reuters has asked me for my order confirmation emails so expect to see something on Ananova soon and in the papers tomorrow.

Hopefully they'll anonymise my details (-:

Re:Order sent

[Anonymous Coward]

They accepted the order, they have to honour it.

They may *try* to get out of it, but it is entirely up to you.

If you sent off the order but had not yet recieved a reply, they can refuse the sale.

You should get both.

Yawn

[mikeage]

This kind of thing happens all the time. Anyone who frequents the fatwallet or anandtech boards knows about it-- they will NEVER honor prices like this. That's why their disclaimer includes things like "not responsible for typographic errors." But it's still sometimes fun to order 1,000,000 when the prices are accidently posted as 0.00.

Re:Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the First Sale doctrine?

I'm not a lawyer, but changing the price after you have ordered an item should be illegal.

Re:I wonder what tipped them off?

[LucidityZero]

Not *everyone* is profiteering and subversive. I'm sure a customer let them know about the error.

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[Uninvited Guest]

Here is a link to that story about that 36-inch TV for $99 on Amazon. People sued to get the TV for the advertised price, and lost.

An interesting sales strategy....

[jkrise]

1. Put up a product at a ridiculous price on Amazon, say about 10% normal price.
2. Get noticed.
3. (optional) Process about 10 orders at absurd price, to gain goodwill from market.
4. After a threshold number of 'absurd' orders, take down product.
5. Send link to Slashdot.
6. Enjoy.

Wonder what Amazon's charging HPaq for all the 'free' attention.

Re:An interesting sales strategy....

[machine of god]

7. Profit!

Re:An interesting sales strategy....

[kanthoney]

Expect a patent on that shortly.

Conspiracy

[sploxx]

Sure they meant iraq not ipaq, didn't they?

Re:Conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

No. 'p' and 'q' are too far away from eachother on the keyboard for them to make that mistake.

Re:Conspiracy

[cristofer8]

So you mean to say that Amazon beat Bush to taking down iraq?

Re:Conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't say 'iqaq', dumbshit!

Worthy of /.?

[mildness]

I can see this on AnandTech's Hot Deals forum but /.?

Bill

Re:Worthy of /.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or Kingdeal.com... or others...
But this seems like an attempt to get everyone to sign up for the /. early-access articles.

Slashdot Posts Useless Story for $0

[Lev13than]

Lev13than writes "In a pretty routine blunder, slashdot.org has inexplicably posted an article about Amazon making a typo. The article is for sale for just over $0 (plus postage and packing). It's not very hard to get through to their site right now, but if you're bored you can have a look at their blunder here." Don't bother clicking through, Slashdot will post a dupe in 20 minutes.

Delayed articles

[brejc8]

The story was originally on the inquirer. The original came out and amazon noticed and pulled the whole site down for couple of hours, fixed the problem and put it back online. Only then does the slashdot story come online. I was wondering when the story being shown to subscribers first will come into problems.

It can't have been just me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon Sells IRAQis for $10

The BBC have picked up on this

[wsimmonds]

The BBC have quickly picked up on this, you can find their story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2864461.stm It claims that "some workers were rumoured to be placing orders for 50 or 60 of the computers at a time"

Re:The BBC have picked up on this

[Shimbo]

It claims that "some workers were rumoured to be placing orders for 50 or 60 of the computers at a time"

If I was Amazon, I'd fulfill all the single orders for the PR value and decline any bulk orders. That would teach "some workers" a valuable lesson.

I ordered one!

[Raumkraut]

I don't expect to get one, but I (and one of my workmates) put in an order nonetheless.

Not mentioned anywhere else I've found was that the HP iPAQ H5450 was priced at about GB£23 also!
Needless to say that I ordered me one of those, too. :-)

Remains to be seen whether Amazon will honour the price, but I doubt it.

refunds

[Anonymous Coward]

There was also a £560 wifi model going for about £27. The £7 one was #1 on the sales list, while the £27 one got to about #20 before they shut the site down.

If you read the small print it says they won't charge your credit card until the order is ready for shipping (i.e not right away, so they haven't actually taken your money & hence accepted the contract to supply the goods).
They also reserve the right to refuse your order in the event of mispricing.

We ordered a couple & got the acceptance, but we're not expecting to actually get them. Still, you've got to be in to win...

Re:refunds

[jabuzz]

The same happens with most high street shops, your credit card is not charged until long after you leave the shop. Consider payment via a cheque in the high street to make the comparison even more stark.

I think you would have a hard time arguing that the consideration only takes place when they charge your card, and not when they take your card details and send you a confirmation. However I don't believe that a legal precidence has been set yet.

Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

So, as this is one of the most pointless articles you could ever imagine (Amazon puts wrong price on thing, pulls thing, Slashdot posts article about it), what shall we all talk about instead?

I mean, go ahead and try to discuse this if you want, but what are you going to do; post witty quips about the prices of things? Anecdotes about how you once ordered something at the wrong price, and it wasn't delivered? Seriously, what is there to discuss?

Anyone got any interesting and funny tech anecodotes they want to share? Are we at war yet? What's the weather like in your part of the world? Some new trolling material? Anyone actually paying for this crap?

Re:Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider the source.

With stuff like this, the anti-corporate flamebait, and all the unthinking MS rant stories, don't you get the general impression this editor, michael, is, like, 14 years old?

Re:Exactly

[ethanms]

It's 71.2*F... low humidity... ceiling is about 12'... it's clear, but visibility is only about 2'.

Of course my universe consists of a smallish fabric walled box. But the bandwidth can't be beat =)

Re:Exactly

[Anonymous Coward]

I complain because I simply cannot believe that given the vast world we inhabit, and the mutlitude of things that are happening, this is the best thing that has been posted so far. I'd like to read something interesting, generating some page impressions for Slashdot, but all we get is dross.

Thats why.

Re:Exactly

[seanw]

yes

Re:Exactly

[JonKatzIsAnIdiot]

>With stuff like this, the anti-corporate flamebait, and all the unthinking MS rant stories, don't you get the general impression this editor, michael, is, like, 14 years old?

mentally, anyway.

Re:Power supply?

[Anonymous Coward]

In most cases they cover themselves well enough so they don't have to (E&OE, or errors and omissions excepted is the usual UK phrase). It's an obvious mistake to all concerned so there is no need to honour it.

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[Raumkraut]

Ah, but that was under US law. This is under UK law.

Though I still doubt it'll be honoured.

It's gotta be here somewhere...

[saynte]

Somebody made a list of how to sell something on slashdot and didn't include ... "#) PROFIT!" Maybe it's in the first few lines... maybe I just missed... oh no... oh god!! It's really not there! I'm going to faint, my world is in shambles. Excuse me while I try to piece my perception of this reality back together.

Re:It's gotta be here somewhere...

[emmons]

1. Make list about selling something on slashdot
2. Forget to end list with "PROFIT!"
3. Wait until someone replies that you forgot to include "PROFIT!"
4. PROFIT!

Blah

[Anonymous Coward]

Its clearly a very slow news day when all you can do is wait for news.

LATEST: Shop puts wrong price on item. Corrects mistake.

LATEST: Person does something. Another person reacts.

LATEST: Dog barks at passer-by, cat sleeps on sofa.

Seriously, what the hell is this?

Somethings not right...

[natron 2.0]

I still don't understand how sites like Amazon can get away with not honoring posted prices. In the US when a brick and mortar store mis-lables or mis-prices an item they have to honor the mis-labled price. I even think it is a law. Why is it not the same for online shopping?

Re:Somethings not right...

[erinacht]

Surely this isn't quite right - it's the same in the UK - but the shopkeeper is not obliged to sell you anything at all.

I.E. Can't they just refuse to sell the item at *ANY* price...

Re:Somethings not right...

[jamesangel]

If it is a mistake they don't have to honour it. It would be pretty unfair if you were selling a house for $1,000,000 and two 0s dropped off the sign, wouldn't it?

Re:Somethings not right...

[nihilvt]

Come on, if it's an honest mistake and you are an honest person, why would you insist on robbing them?

Re:Somethings not right...

[Anonymous Coward]

not under Uk law - buying something is covered by contract law, with the buyer making the offer to buy and the seller accepting or NOT the offer. The norm is considered you are offering to buy at the price on the label - the seller is free to refuse or counter offer though.

This is also why you cannot technically offer to sell prohibited weapons - you accept an offer to buy not offer to sell. (years ago an act prohibiting the sale of certain weapons was found ineffective for that very reason, subsequent laws have corrected that blunder)

Re:Somethings not right...

[Mauvaisours]

I don't know for the US but here [in France], physical shops have to honor the lowest labeled price. e-shops are considered same as ordering on catalog and are protected from mislabeling unless they take the money.

Re:Somethings not right...

[radish]

That's my understanding of UK law - if they advertise a given price they either must sell at that price, or not at all. If they refuse to sell to you at that price, they must also refuse to sell to anyone else at that price (otherwise it's discrimination) so basically, if they sell once at the wrong price they must honour all subsequent orders at that price UNTIL they correct the advertised price.

I used this today in Dixons - they had a sign up saying "All Gamecube accessories 20% off marked price" - so I tried to buy a controller (marked @ £16). The assistant said that according to the computer the 20% had already been taken off, hence to discount. I pointed out the notice & the law, she asked her manager, and I got the controller for £12.80 (while she was ringing up the sale he was busy taking down all the signs!).

This isn't news...

[artemis67]

This isn't the first time that Amazon has posted the wrong price for an item. In fact, they've done it quite a bit.

I bought the movie The Insider on DVD from Amazon when it was first released for $0.99 because of a pricing error.

Sometimes they will honor the pricing error on small ticket items. Usually, however, they will just send you an email announcing that they are unable to fill your order because of a pricing error and that your order is cancelled.

Re:This isn't news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus, did you ask for your money back? No way in hell I'd pay $0.99 for that shitty movie!

Re:I wonder what tipped them off?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't think when they had 500,000 orders come in in 10 minutes, that might have alerted them instead? And I'm pretty sure if the order ever got as far as the warehouse, Bob would probably have had to put in for overtime from his supervisor in order to get them all packed today. Then they would have noticed.

You're not getting it

[RMH101]

No contract until they bill you. Amazon don't bill you until it ships. Price cannot reasonably be thought to be correct. Under UK law they have zero requirements to give this to you. Quit whining: Governing Law and Contract Formation No contract will subsist between you and Amazon.co.uk* for the sale by it to you of any product unless and until Amazon.co.uk accepts your order by e-mail confirming that it has dispatched your product. That acceptance will be deemed complete and will be deemed for all purposes to have been effectively communicated to you at the time Amazon.co.uk sends the e-mail to you (whether or not you receive that e-mail). For the avoidance of doubt, any such contract will be deemed to have been concluded in the United States of America. Further, any such contract will be interpreted, construed and enforced in all respects in accordance with the laws of England, and you and Amazon.co.uk irrevocably submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts. "

Re:You're not getting it

[Ed Avis]

No contract will subsist between you and Amazon.co.uk* for the sale by it to you of any product unless and until Amazon.co.uk accepts your order by e-mail confirming that it has dispatched your product.

Exactly. This is not the same as the time they bill you. The price quoted on the web site is an invitation to treat (invitation to enter into a contract); the actual contract is formed when you get the confirmation message.

So if there are some lucky people who ordered the item and got a confirmation message, Amazon is contractually obliged to deliver the goods - whether or not they have yet billed the credit card.

Re:You're not getting it

[Anonymous Coward]

"So if there are some lucky people who ordered the item and got a confirmation message, Amazon is contractually obliged to deliver the goods - whether or not they have yet billed the credit card."

No, the confirmation is a receipt of your request for the product. The contract is exchanged when Amazon debits your card and money is exchanged for the goods.

Just as you are not contractually obliged to carry through your order after placing it (you can cancel it), neither are they. Although the customer has the benefit of being able to return the product after receiving it if they aren't happy with it.

Re:You're not getting it

[LokiSteve]

Best Buy had a blunder like this a while back.

They had $800 printers for $8, I ordered 100 or so. Turned out they caught the mistake and canceled the transactions, but not before they gave everyone who ordered one $50 certificates.

Even in the case that you don't get what they made a mistake on, you can still get something out of it, so its always worth trying. I'd love to have had a few nice printers and a boatload of money form the EBay sale of the rest, but I'll gladly accecpt the $50 of hush money.

Now the morals of this on the other hand...

Re:You're not getting it

[privacyt]

Please look up the UK's bait and switch law. Amazon.co.uk is blatantly violating it. But of course they'll get away with it, since massive multinationals are mostly above the law.

Re:You're not getting it

[kerith]

Quick correction; if any lucky people got the confirmation of the product actually SHIPPING, then Amazon is required to honor the price. The product actually being sent to you is the key part here; not Amazon receiving your purchase notification, or even Amazon sending a confirmation that they received your purchase. Until the goods are out the door, they're under no obligation whatsoever; once the goods have shipped, though, Amazon has effectively agreed to the terms of the contract with you, and they're bound by whatever price was listed.

Side note, online retailers (at least in the US) are not allowed to draft your account for an item until that item has physically shipped. They can put a hold on the account while they confirm payment and shipping details, but they can't actually arrange for the EFT until the goods have been sent on their way.

Re:You're not getting it

[Anonymous Coward]

In what way is this bait and switch?

Re:You're not getting it

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have gotten 100 gift certificates. Now that would rock!

Re:You're not getting it

[privacyt]

The common law definition of "bait and switch" is a offering an item for sale and then not carrying through with it when someone wants to buy it.

Never!

[benjiboo]

Some more links:

The Register.

ZdNet.

People who I know must have orders 250+ between them. There is no way they would honour this - and every person who ordered realised it was a mistake, so they have nothing to whine about.

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[Ledskof]

Did this post bounce off the atmosphere from the 1940's or something? Cause this guy is WAY off.

It's worse than that

[sh00z]

Look at the Amazon URL. It includes the text "ref=sr_aps_electronics_1_1". That means that everyone following the link will get a cookie setting up a certain Amazon Associate to get a kickback of some percentage of everything you *do* happen to buy in the next couple of weeks.

Re:It's worse than that

[j-beda]

I don't think so - that looks more like information about what category the item is in (electronics in this case). The referral URL's look more like: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000065UO O/johansbooksparto/ for a particular item (a Sony DVD player in this case), or http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/redirect-home/ johansbooksparto/ for the home page. And I am not sure if there is significant (or any) referral fees paid for "next day" browsing.

Re:It's worse than that

[sh00z]

If I'm mistaken, I apologize, but I'm an Associate of the US amazon, and this looks just like one legal way of building the links on this side of the pond (example, "ref=ase_associate_name"). And, I also only get about 10% of my kickback money from items I have directly linked. The other 90% id for "other stuff" that folks went on to shop after following my links. So, in my case at least, "next day" browsing is quite significant.

Re:It's worse than that

[j-beda]

Well, with all the other crap in the link, it is pretty obvious that it was just a cut and past from the browser location window, which contains all sorts of extraneous information beyond the minimal necessary needed, but I suppose that someone could have tried to slip in a referral link (does slashdot have a UK referral id?)

In your particular case, I think that what you are probably seeing is not "next day" sales, but "same day" sales. As stated at the US website:

You may earn a referral fee for any qualifying items placed in a customer's shopping cart during a 24-hour window. This window begins at the time a visitor clicks through your Associates link. However, the 24-hour window will close if the customer submits his/her order or reenters Amazon.com through another Associate's link. Once the window is closed, any additional purchases will not earn referral fees for your Associates account. If the customer returns to Amazon.com through your Associates link, this will generate a new 24-hour window.

Please note that a customer may follow your Associates link, add an item to his/her shopping cart and then leave Amazon.com without completing an order. As long as the item was added to the shopping cart during the 24-hour window, you will earn a referral fee on this item even if the actual order is placed several weeks later. "

If you are a USA associate, it might be valuable for you to joint the UK and Canadian programs to increase your referrasl for other english-language patrons. I get a few bits of money from them in addition to US referrals on my site.

Re:It's worse than that

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this "cookie" you speak of? They sound tasteeee.

Why? I doubt you'd do the same

[BoomerSooner]

What if you were going to sell your $12000 car and the ad in the newspaper printed $1200 by mistake?

Would you sell it for $1200? Doubtful. I love hypocrites who say a business should do what they wouldn't do themselves.

What if it were a company you owned stock in and you were going to lose part of your dividend? Bet you'd change your mind then too.

A company has no reason to "honor" mistakes, that's why they print those little disclaimers about erronious listings.

Re:Why? I doubt you'd do the same

[rking]

What if you were going to sell your $12000 car and the ad in the newspaper printed $1200 by mistake?

Would you sell it for $1200? Doubtful. I love hypocrites who say a business should do what they wouldn't do themselves.

An ad in a newspaper is just an invitation to treat, you could still change your mind and never agree to sell the car to anyone.

A web site is intially the same, but once someone clicks to buy though there must be at least an offer, a message on screen saying that the order has been placed seems like acceptance to me, making a binding contract. If not then almost certainly receipt of an email confirming the order would make for a binding contract. I'm notfamiliar with any case law directly concerning web sites in this context though, just working from basic principles.

What if it were a company you owned stock in and you were going to lose part of your dividend? Bet you'd change your mind then too.

I think that's a stupid comment. I wouldn't change my mind about what I thought was the correct resolution in that situation. Are you saying that your opinion would change day to day if you were one day a seller and the next a buyer? That's pathetic.

A company has no reason to "honor" mistakes, that's why they print those little disclaimers about erronious listings.

It depends on whether a contract has actually been entered into. Once it has of course they're bound to honor it.

Re:Why? I doubt you'd do the same

[yoey]

If I posted an ad to sell my car at $12,000 and the newspaper printed it as $1,200 -- and I was the owner of the newspaper too -- then I would honor the error.

It's not like HP has to sell the unit at the low price, it's Amazon. They already bought the units from HP at wholesale. They, in turn, sell them to the public at retail. If they err on their site then they should honor that.

Re:Why? I doubt you'd do the same

[TGK]

I think the key issue here is the fundamental differences between a brick and morter establishment and a web based one. Now, I understand the legal differences between an order placed on line and buying something at the checkout at wallmart, but look at it from the customers point of view.

When I walk up to the counter at wallmart to buy an item I pay for it, they hand it to me, and I take it home. It's mine now. The price can not be contested. I take it out of the store and take it home.

Any questions about the price have to be resolved at the checkout register or thereabouts. Once I've left the store, with our without the product, the negotion phase is over. I either have or do not have the product.

With a web based retailer things are different. I give them my credit card information and they say the order is placed. I then exit the website and (may) receive an email telling me that my order is being processed.

Subjectively, from the customer's point of view the transaction is now closed. Customers will now record the transaction, etc. Most web-vendors will send you a recipt as part of the order.

The point is that at this point both the customer at Wallmart and the one at Wallmart.com see the transaction as over.

Only in the case of the web store does wallmart have the right to decide, after the fact, that the pricing was inaccurate and renegotiate the contract. Granted, technicly there was no contract in the first place, but the customer has certainly left the site with the impression that there was.

This may not be illegal. It may not even be immortal. But it is deceptive. It does not make me, as a customer, feel comfortable dealing with these parties.

When does the "price mistake" stop being a price mistake? Amazon uses either a LIFO (stack) or FIFO (queue) invantory model. Are "price mistakes" at Amazon subject to changes in supplier prices?

When this happens at Christmas or around a birthday this can drasticly affect someone's plans. Little Timmy's present was all taken care of until Amazon hikes the price on me claiming a "mistake." Now I have to re-order from somewhere else, find something at a brick and morter establishment, or accecpt their new price? Either way it's pay Amazon's new hike or take a cut in convenience/timelyness.

Come on people. Many of us design user interfaces for a living. You don't let people do something suicidialy stupid without at least asking "Are you SURE you want to do this?" How hard would it be for Amazon to flag questionable data, requiring approval before posting?

Re:Why? I doubt you'd do the same

[smyle]

What if it were a company you owned stock in and you were going to lose part of your dividend? Bet you'd change your mind then too.

No, but if this were a frequent occurrence, I'd probably get rid of this stock.

Re:Why? I doubt you'd do the same

[Kashif Shaikh]

A company has no reason to "honor" mistakes, that's why they print those little disclaimers about erronious listings.

Yes, but here in Canada a big department company took advantage of this. Through out a period of weeks, they were accused to purposely lowering the price on their goods to attract customers who were told at time of purchase, 'flier had a mistake'. Then later on they will bring out 'correction' notices.

I don't know if the accusation lead to charges or a lawsuit being laid, but it is a something big businesses can and will do from time to time.

Kashif

Seen this before

[dimer0]

They've done this before, so this isn't big news. About 9 months ago, they had the new RCA/Xbox TVs, 36", MSRP of about $1200, on sale for $99! (It was funny, it said "YOU SAVE 92%" or whatever the number was)

It circulated pretty fast. I ordered 6 of them.

I did find their policy posted, tho - which stated that the could at any time increase the price of an ordered item and then notify you for your approval.. Or, if the price posted was too high and you ordered, they'd drop the price - and this wouldn't take your approval to push it through.

Needless to say, about 3 days later a bunch of us got emails stating that there was an error, and if we'd like to order them at $999, then we could re-confirm our order.. Hah

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[Anonymous Coward]

Give it time, old chap. Friendly fire and all that. I'll wager you fellows will dispatch more of your own than the hun, what?

Pip pip!

It's been edutational...

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know that Amazon sold anything more than books, software, videos (I use bol) -

I may check the other lines out now!

seems like a good advertising tactic - though strange that I got an email from a friend about this before I see it from the site thats supposed to have it's finger on the pulse, was this leaked by Amazon themselves??

Amazon Price Error Email Reponse

[Anonymous Coward]

Greetings from Amazon.com.

We are writing regarding your recent order for a cell phone which was
placed through a link on an Amazon.com Associate web site. If you
have already written to us regarding this order, please note that you
will not receive a separate response.

Due to a technical error, the phone(s) you ordered had been mistakenly
displayed with a price of $0.00:

"PCS Phone Handspring Treo 300 (Sprint)"

"T-Mobile Sidekick with Camera Attachment (T-Mobile)"

"PCS Phone Samsung I330 (Sprint)"

In accordance with our posted policies on pricing, we are unable to
offer this item(s) for the incorrectly displayed price. Therefore, we
have cancelled your order for the phone(s). We sincerely apologize
for any inconvenience.

Because of the additional information required to process orders for
cell phones and service, at this time we are unable to offer the
option to order this phone through an Associates site. However, you
are welcome to place a new order for this phone by visiting our web
site:

http://www.amazon.com/cellphones

Please note that service plans vary in price by both carrier and
geographic location, and phones vary in price based upon the service
plan with which they are combined. Without a service plan, the cell
phone's price will be more expensive than a phone with a service plan.

Please note: this e-mail was sent from a notification-only address
that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this
message.

Again, we regret any inconvenience this may have caused. We value
your business and hope to see you again soon at Amazon.com.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com

Amazon's Policy - Tough luck

[dimer0]

With respect to items sold by Amazon.com, we cannot confirm the price of an item until you order; however, we do NOT charge your credit card until after your order has entered the shipping process. Despite our best efforts, a small number of the items in our catalog may be mispriced. Rest assured, however, that we verify prices of products sold and shipped by Amazon.com as part of our shipping procedures.

* If an item's correct price is lower than our stated price, we charge the lower amount and ship you the item.
* If an item's correct price is higher than our stated price, we will, at our discretion, either contact you for instructions before shipping or cancel your order and notify you of such cancellation.

Please note that this policy applies only to products sold and shipped by Amazon.com. Your purchases from third-party sellers using Amazon.com Payments are charged at the time you place your order, and third-party sellers may follow different policies in the event of a mispriced item.

Re:Amazon's Policy - Tough luck

[gimpboy]

Despite our best efforts, a small number of the items in our catalog may be mispriced. Rest assured, however, that we verify prices of products sold and shipped by Amazon.com as part of our shipping procedures.

wouldnt it be easier, with all of these fancy computers and stuff, to verify prices at order time? couldnt you run a check when a price is entered into the system that looks for stuff like discounts of 75% or more of the wholesale cost? this could raise a red flag and alert the necessary people. how hard is it to catch stuff like this? or is there already stuff to catch this stuff and these things just happened to slip through?

Next week on Slashdot...

[192939495969798999]

Amazon goes out of business from fulfilling 80 billion iPAQ orders at 7 dollars each... I don't think so! Or maybe they can offset the loss by collecting ~10% on the sale of Eminem's childhood house.

Sometimes these price errors work

[Glyndwr]

I was one of the lucky ones who got a Kodak DX3700 digital camera for £100, so these things do sometimes pan out.

I looked into the legal aspects back then, when I was busy shouting at Kodak. There are a few interlocking issues.

Firstly, a contract is only formed if one party makes an offer to tender and the other party accepts this offer. For most web retailers, the most you get back is a "confirmation of order" email that has a dubious legal standing. Kodak's email, however, states in very clear terms that it is a receipt, suggesting a contract has been made.

Secondly, if one party can be shown to have acted in bad faith, the contract can be annulled. This occured in the case of people buying a £299 TV for £2.99 from Argos: the price was ruled to be clearly in error, the buyers must have known it was an error, so they were acting in bad faith. In Kodak's case it was not so clear cut; the price was low, but it was marked as being a special offer, so not utterly incredible.

In the end, Kodak decided the legal waters were muddy enough that it didn't fancy trying them out, so it gave in and sold the cameras at the advertised price. But that's not to say it would have lost, merely that the bad PR of fighting it and the chance of losing would be too costly.

In any event, if you were quick enough to get one of these PDAs ordered, don't get too excited: I'll be shocked if you get one. Amazon wouldn't lose if this went to court.

(IANAL, of course)

Early Buyers

[rf0]

Going by a mailing list I'm on it seems that some of the early buyers actually had their credit cards charged for this. Now under UK law these make a legally binding contract as payment has been made. Its going to be interesting to see how Amazon reacts to this one.

There was a similar case a few years back with Kodak where the mispriced a camera and finally ended up honouring the deal. Details on the inquirer.

In a bid to get more readers

[vosbert]

In a bid to get more readers, Slashdot has become a site advertising great deals much like fatwallet and bensbargains. Technology related news was deemed unimportant compared to the savings that can be passed on the Slashdot community. Look forward to great prices on dsl modems, cdr's, and other assorted computer hardware/software. "Who needs news, when people can check www.cnn.com for that crap?" exclaims Cowboy Neal.

Could be a hacker...

[Tuxinatorium]

Maybe somebody hacked the site to get a dirt-cheap iPac. Then again, who the hell would want one of those POSes except maybe his grandma?

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[rirugrat]

Here is a link to that story about that 36-inch TV for $99 on Amazon. People sued to get the TV for the advertised price, and lost.

I remember that because I also placed an order for a $99 RCA 36" TV from Amazon and received a letter back from them stating that they are under no obligation to honor "price mistakes".

Could someone explain why Amazon and other on-line retailers are not held to the same standards as their brick-n-mortar counterparts with respect to this? It still sounds like "bait-n-switch" to me...

Chris

If you switch the 50s and 100s in an ATM

[Phigrin]

If people can get something for nothing they become very greedy.

I spoke to a guy refilling an ATM once and asked him if they ever switch the denominations when they refill the teller machine. He said that it has happened once or twice and that you can see the logs show how people keep withdrawing 50s that come out as 100s.

In those cases they just correct the error by adjusting the balances of the individuals' accounts. I think they also gave them each a call and probably got responses like: "REALLY!?, I had no idea the machine was giving the wrong bills, I always draw money one 50 at a time! Besides, it was your error, you can't/shouldn't correct it now at my expense!"

Re:If you switch the 50s and 100s in an ATM

[Anonymous Coward]

The bank is a multi-billion corporation whose business is usury. I'm not sure how you can ever accuse anyone of being "greedy" when it comes to beating a bank.

Re:If you switch the 50s and 100s in an ATM

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a case in England a while back when an ATM gave out money for free. Several people ended up in Jail for taking the money.

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[fatgav]

Ah but in the UK, a similar thing happened with Kodak digital cameras. If I recall correctly, those customers who got confirmation that their order had been taken were legally able to purchase at that price. IANAL though.

Mod Points

[Mr. Droopy Drawers]

Man, I wish I had mod points to rate a story. I'd give this one a "Troll".

News for Nerds? I think not.

moron Godless marketeering bullunders

[Anonymous Coward]

now that software is free, the plan was/is, to get all/most everIE J. on some kind 50-100$+ per month media subscription 'service'.

that's not working out very well right now. lookout bullow.

i must say dough, excellent job there, on voting with what's left in yOUR wallet J..

nothing but gnu skies, ...?

try to think about what yOUR creator would want you/US to do/buy? we know that's hard for most of US, having been trained that we came from wealth/station, etc..., & are, ourselves, the center(ers) of the wwwuniverse.

Funny..

[wwelles]

But I wonder how many stupid people got fired?

lesson learned: Buy a /. subscription

[stm2]

This is an example of why you should subscribe to slashdot. Getting the news 10 minutes in advance could make a difference! :)

Actually, no. Brick-n-mortar stores *don't*

[MickLinux]

If a brick-and-mortar store mislabels an item, they don't have to honor the price. A lot of the department stores do, because they sell so many items, and they are all cheap, and the value of good will is more than the value of the item.

Also, if they mislabel the item, and sell it at price to whites, but not to blacks (or Catholics but not protestants, etc), they can get in trouble that way.

And if you *call* the store, and ask "Do you have a Black-n-Decker Stove-top drill with automatic surprise reverse torquing" and they say "yes", and you ask "What is your price", and they say "$25", and you ask "please check--all the other stores say $50", and they say "I know, it's $25, come and get it", then they can be bound by their verbal contract.

But if they mislabel an item (especially a boutique store) and you discover it, they can say "no, I'm sorry, that's $135, not $1.35." And if you don't like it, you can still buy it, or you can leave. Or you can break all their little hummel figures, and go to jail until you pay for them -- it's up to you.

That said, I think it would be *great* if the Amazon site was set up to every so often lower the price of one or two new items, drastically (especially open box items.) That way, you'd go there, just to check.

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[91degrees]

That wasn't a legal thing. Kodak just realised the bad PR that was being generated was probably costing them more than the value of the cameras.

There's also the consideration that the price was not quite obviously wrong. Very very cheap, perhaps, but this was at a time when digital camera prices were dropping like crazy. Nobody would consider a PDA to cost £7. They'd be sceptical if it was a used gameboy at that price.

Pricing errors in the UK

[SilentJ_PDX]

I'm a US expat living over in the UK. Apparently there is some weird pricing law that says if you find a product in a shop with a price tag that's wrong, you can buy the product for the price on the tag.

I was out w/ my girlfriend looking for a memory card for her camera a few weeks ago. We found a 128MB card for about half of what I thought it should be. When we asked how much the 256MB cards where, the shopkeeper discovered the mistake. But my girlfriend quickly said "we'll buy the 128MB one". When I told her that the real price might not be such a good deal, she said "I get to pay the price on the tag. It's law here." and the shopkeeper agreed. Obviously a bit secondhand, but I figure the shopkeeper would have objected if it wasn't true.

Anyway, I'm just wondering why this doesn't seem to apply to Amazon. Some have said it's because they didn't charge the card, but the shopkeeper hadn't taken any money by that point, either...

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll wager you fellows will dispatch more of your own than the hun, what?

by jingo, your command of the mother tongue is not quite up to snuff: did you mean "than of the hun" or "than the hun will"

tally ho

Re:This might be worth mentioning if ...

[Fex303]

This might be worth mentioning if they were selling Segway Human Transporters for GBP10

Hell, I'd be impressed if they were actually selling any Segways at all.

The same people that don't "get" this...

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

also don't "get" the concept of "Legal Tender".

Never forget the shop keepers perfectly legal right to tell you to "F*** Off".

Re:The same people that don't "get" this...

[spakka]

also don't "get" the concept of "Legal Tender".

Never forget the shop keepers perfectly legal right to tell you to "F*** Off".

This has nothing to do with legal tender, but with the distinction between 'invitation to treat' and 'offer'

Re:The same people that don't "get" this...

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

I know it doesn't, what I'm saying is that the people who expect to be sold a £1000 computer for £10 are the same people who expect the shopkeeper to be legally obliged to accept 500 one pence pieces instead of a 5 pound note.

They overlook the shopkeepers right to refuse sale.

Re:The same people that don't "get" this...

[spakka]

I'm saying that the 500 x 1p case has nothing to do with legal tender either

Re:The same people that don't "get" this...

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

Are you trolling?

I know that 500 * 1p pieces has nothing to do with leagal tender.

What i'm saying is that there are huge number of people who _don't_ - and they're normally the same people that think a shop keeper _has_ to sell something that has been priced incorrectly.

Re:The same people that don't "get" this...

[spakka]

I'm not trolling.

There is a popular belief in the UK, promoted by bloke-down-the-pub legal experts, in 'legal tender', being a certain upper limit to the amount of small change a shopkeeper is obliged to accept for a purchase.

Your use of the term 'legal tender' and example of somebody paying a shopkeeper with 500 1p pieces suggested that you shared this misconception. I now stand corrected.

Re:The same people that don't "get" this...

[1u3hr]

legal tender...

If anyone is interested in the horses' mouths, here are a few references:

• US Bureau of Engraving: "All coins and currencies of the United States, regardless of when coined or issued, shall be legal tender for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes, duties and dues."
  This statute means that you have made a valid and legal offer of payment of your debt when you tender United States currency to your creditor. However, there is no Federal statute which mandates that private businesses must accept cash as a form of payment. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise.
• Bank of England: The concept of legal tender is often misunderstood. Contrary to popular opinion, legal tender is not a means of payment that must be accepted by the parties to a transaction, but rather a legally defined means of payment that should not be refused by a creditor in satisfaction of a debt.
• Reserve Bank of Australia "...refusal to accept payment in legal tender notes and coins is not unlawful... If a provider of goods or services specifies other means of payment prior to the contract, then there is usually no obligation for legal tender to be accepted as payment....coins are legal tender for payment of amounts which are limited as follows.... not exceeding 10 times the face value if coins in the range 50c to $10 inclusive are offered; and to any value if coins of value greater than $10 are offered.

buy.com class action suit re hitachi monitors

[ipmcc]

I think the first of the major pricing blunders was buy.com who, back in the day, put up a 19" Hitachi CRT monitor for somewhere around half price. Many ordered, few if any got their monitors, however there was a class action suit and we won. I got a check for $50 out of it. So, for what its worth, there is *some* history of the customer being right in cases like these.

Re:buy.com class action suit re hitachi monitors

[AbRASiON]

"there is *some* history of the customer being right in cases like these."

The customer ISN'T right it's a mistake.
I don't own or run a store, but I'm easily open minded enough to look at the situation.

A mistake has occured and you EXPECT a company to sell a product at a LOSS because of a misprint?
These things happen all the time, how about next time you say something by accident people sue YOUR ass off.

Sure I would order one myself - hell I'd order more and take advantage of it, BUT if they do stop it before charging me and they do pull the ad down and apologise that's tough luck to me - it's kind of like playing lotto.

I hate to make a generalisation here, especially considering the majority of readers to this site, but this seems to be a very "American" attitude to me - "what can you do for me, I want it all".... (no obviously not all of you)

Grow up and accept you missed a potential bargin - now some poor asshole like me, your friends, someone out there is STILL on 10$ an hour in support and have been for 19 months cause the company needs to make up for the loss due to litagous (sp?) consumers.

SOMEONE is missing out cause of YOUR greedyness.

sigh.......

If they do it deliberately...

[zackbar]

it could be considered bait & switch, or at least fraud.

Simple Steps

[SplendidIsolatn]

1. Deliberately dupe editors into posting story which will entice oodles of Shashdotter's to click through to Amazon, knowing the fix has already been made.
2. Use your reference (sr_aps_electronics_1_1) in the link, setting the cookie on their PC to you.
3. They use amazon in the future
4. PROFIT!!!

Re:This might be worth mentioning if ...

[Sly Mongoose]

...they were selling Segway Human Transporters for GBP10

Just wait. They soon will be.

Read the end of this

[eggmaster]

BBC News

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[Kadagan AU]

if you had read the link that the parent poster had given, it explained why it didn't need to be honored.

~Jon~

More to the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the value of the free advertising Amazon has gained from this?

Likely > an iPaq or two...

deal killer

[Hellkitty]

Any fatwallet or anandtech junkie will know that this deal will never be honored. But if there was any chance that it would, posting it up on /. killed it. If you find a deal like this, keep it quiet until your item has shipped! Nothing kills a deal faster than telling the world and having 20,000 people try to order it within 1 hour.

Low prices - BRILLIANT IDEA!

[lpontiac]

Patent claim: A method of increasing sales comprising the distribution of items to a plurarity of customers, in exchange for financial reward (the "sale price"), wherein the sale price is of lesser quantity than the sale price offered by competing merchants.

This is why I won't subscribe

[gosand]

So I read /. every day, but why haven't I subscribed yet? This story is exactly why. So they got rid of Katz, which was a big step in the right direction, but now they are posting ads as stories and stupid crap like this.

Ooooo just think if I would have been a paid subscriber, I could have read about this before anyone else. I ususally don't rip on the editors that much, but I really don't get the point of posting this. It isn't that I have to agree with everything they do, but I think I should get something of reasonable value if I pay for it. I am just not seeing it with Slashdot. If anything, *I* am a value to them, because I submit stories, post comments, and moderate.

Re:This is why I won't subscribe

[RedWizzard]

So you read /. every day, but you don't think you're getting something of value. That doesn't make sense to me. Why do you keep coming back?

Re:This is why I won't subscribe

[gosand]

I said reasonable value, if I pay for it. It isn't worth paying for in my opinion. All of the news stories are from somewhere else, submitted by users, commented on and moderated by users. If they are going to post duplicate stories, spelling and grammar errors, and dingus stories like this one, then I don't feel it is worth paying for. If it goes away because they can't afford to keep it going, I will survive. Right now, I am getting what I pay for on Slashdot.

And I do like it here, but I won't subscribe until I feel that it is worth it. That's my right.

Re:This is why I won't subscribe

[RedWizzard]

Fair enough, I'm not criticising your position, just trying to understand it. You keep comming back here, and you clearly read the comments so you obviously are interested in other users input. You've posted more comments than I have, in a shorter period of time; some 800-odd comments in 3 or 4 years, right? That probably puts you in the top 5% of Slashdot readers in terms of use of the site. It seems like you get value from the site, yet you don't feel it's worth paying for.

All of the news stories are from somewhere else, submitted by users, commented on and moderated by users. If they are going to post duplicate stories, spelling and grammar errors, and dingus stories like this one, then I don't feel it is worth paying for.

It sounds like you don't want to pay for Slashdot because you don't see the value in the aggregation service. You seem to think that since Slashdot is not generating the content directly so they don't deserve compensation for the resources that they contribute. If that's the case then I doubt any improvement in the editing of the site would be enough to entice you to subscribe. Do you read other similar sites, like Fark or Kuro5hin?

Related to the "Pricing Software" article?

[AlabamaMike]

Remeber the "science of pricing" article from a few days ago? The software that tests thousands of prices in real-time to see what the real price should be? If so, I wonder if this is related to that story? I mean, Amazon was one of the first adopters of this technology, and it does sound like something a bug in that software could cause. Anyone have any insights?

Truth in Advertising vs. Truth in Reporting?

[fmaxwell]

This has to be the stupidest and most misleading Slashdot story I have seen in ages. Amazon is not selling IPAQs for $10 as the headline read. You wrote the headline, so if they are selling them at that price, then let's see a shipping receipt, michael. The headline should have been Amazon Typo Discovered.

This is just journalistic sensationalism and Amazon should sue Slashdot for publishing something that misleading and damaging. Now Amazon customer service will have to deal with every bottom-feeder that read the story on Slashdot and then demanded an IPAQ for $10. The end result: No one gets an IPAQ for $10 and Amazon just raises prices to cover the expense of handling the mess that Slashdot's inaccurate headline generated.

Re:Truth in Advertising vs. Truth in Reporting?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's just that the dollar is so widely accepted and noted that everyone else with different currencies is familiar with the dollar.

Nobody cares about your precious pounds.

Re:Truth in Advertising vs. Truth in Reporting?

[wcbarksdale]

I fully expect Slashdot to give me up-to-date news on typos around the world. No news source is better qualified to do so.

Our lives are over!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did /. post this?

Why did they FORCE me to read it?

Why are they charging me to view this crap??

Why are there not any other news sites on the internet??

Oh.. Wait, I could have skipped this article.
Hmm, /. does not charge me anything...
You mean that there ARE OTHER NEWS SITES??

Legal precedent

[oniony]

Read this Legal precedent in consumers' favour

That's what they get...

[Thud457]

That's what they get for charging different people different prices for the same goods.

Now the shoe's on the other foot (through their own ineptitude). If the FTC (or the British/EU equivalent) lets them get away with the first, they should hold them responsible for the second.

Re:I wonder what tipped them off?

[Anonymous Coward]

I weep for Bezos, poor man might end up on skid row if we don't warn him about this travesty to his business empire :-(.

How can we be so cruel to someone who innovated with the concept of clicking on a button once with a mouse to effect a purchase. And then boldly protected his property with the highly moral US patent system, fighting against the great unwashed and their communist cries of objection.

Amazon Sells IRAQ for $10

[hackrobat]

For a moment, I thought so. :-) And then I said to myself, e-commerce has come a loooonng way!

Why post this?

[Gildogg]

Why the hell would /. post this story but not the one I submitted yesterday about a serious security flaw with Samba? Doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense... This site is going down hill quickly.

Re:Why post this?

[PinkX]

That's because, if you would bother checking, you'd find out that the samba vulnerability news were published las t saturday.

Re:Why post this?

[Gildogg]

Sorry, missed that on Saturday, but that was just an example. I always check to see if my news stories have been listed...usually they are turned down and have not been listed...or the main page or otherwise.

Kind of ironic....

[mike_mgo]

that /. would post a story about a website making a mistake. I mean I've never seen a typo or dupe here.

Is this news?

[humphrm]

Aren't there scores of websites dedicated to uncovering up-to-the-minute pricing blunders, for people to take advanatge of? Is this really the remit of Slashdot?

Ahh well, I'll get a Zaurus as planned, then.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Amazon issued a statement admitting the error and cancelling the orders which had been placed at the incorrect price.

The firm said that its pricing policy allowed it to contact customers and offer them the product at the true price should an error occur."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2864461.stm

No badwill here

[NDPTAL85]

If such a mistake were encountered by me I wouldn't hold any ill feelings towards the company in question. Thats because I understand that companies have to be able to make a profit in order to sell me the things I want. I'm not some immature person who wants a $1000 object for $10. Thats obviously not the right price and only someone completely without dignity would bitch about not being able to rob the company blind.

Of course I also realize that I am in the minority on this and that the unwashed masses will foam at the mouth like rabid dogs outraged that they were unable to "stick it to the man".

Re:No badwill here

[zackbar]

I'm not suggesting that the company must honor them either, especially for those that ordered dozens of units. (disclaimer, I own amazon stock, although through only my investment club.)

I do think, however, that some stores will honor these mistakes anyway. After all, it was their mistake. Additionally, this could potentially be abused by stores trying a electronic form of bait & switch or fraud. This is why a law exists for brick & mortars that rquire them to honor posted prices.

Parady

[rf0]

Somehow so try http://www.jonnyclark.com/amazon.html

Rus

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[Anonymous Coward]

In the U.S., it is generally held that an advertisement is not a legal offer to sell, and need not be honored by the retailer. However, most reputable retailers will honor the mistaken ad as a matter of public trust and good will. If Amazon doesn't honor it, then ... public mistrust and bad will.

well

[ciryon]

About two years ago Amazon (US) accidentaly put a book for sale at 10 cents. I ordered it for that price and got it delivered without problems.

Perhaps it's only recently they've changed their price policy? Ff you've got a receipt with the "faulty" price and money drawn from your account they should also deliver it. Their mistake.

Ciryon

This just in..

[DarkMan]

According to BBC radio 2, Amazon have decided not to honour any orders placed.

Unfortuantly, no web link yet, and the radio was somewhat lacking on detail, but they implied that no-one was going to get one at that price.

This wouldn't be the first time that a retailer has renaged on an online deal, offereed in error. A couple of years ago (Sept 1999), Argos offered a £300 TV for £3. They refused to honour it, and I'm not aware of any legal rammifications for Argos.

So, looks like this will be just another one of those curiosity stories.

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!!!

[davinciII]

Amazon.com now selling products at a loss!!!!

How is this any different than any other item they sell? They lose money on every transaction, but hell, they make it up in volume!

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch the news much? There are American news reports of Iraqi women and children waving guns in SUPPORT of Hussein. Doesn't sound that ruthless to me. As for the thanks, that will com in either 9mm or 7.62mm options.

IRAQs?

[Stephen]

Did anyone else read the headline and think that Amazon was selling IRAQs? Or was it just me?

Re:IRAQs?

[telstar]

Nah, the French sold out on Iraq a long time ago...

Credit card law.

[Memetic]

I seem to remember that under UK credit laws if you buy on your credit card and the supplier fails to deliver then the Credit card company can be liable. Might be an interesting route to persue.

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[gl4ss]

if it's just a honest mistake they got no legal obligation to sell it at that advertised price, at least not in most places in the world(well, we were teached this at school: if car dealer accidentally puts the price at 33 instead of 33thousand he doesn't have to sell at that price.. however it's illeagal to just use things like this to con people coming to your shop with false adverts).

like, if they were advertising that in papers, web, tv and at all places for 99$, then it would be questinable if it was just an honest accident that the price was printed at 99$.

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[nicodaemos]

Could someone explain why Amazon and other on-line retailers are not held to the same standards as their brick-n-mortar counterparts with respect to this?

Back when I was architecting eMarkets, I seem to recall that credit card processors (visa, mastercard, etc.) wouldn't allow online merchants to actually charge a buyer's card until the item was actually shipped. So the merchant would first do a pre-authorization for the purchase amount and then do an actual charge when it left their warehouses.

It could be the loophole that Amazon is using when they state that there is no actual 'contract' until the item is shipped.

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

So if there are some lucky people who ordered the item and got a confirmation message, Amazon is contractually obliged to deliver the goods - whether or not they have yet billed the credit card.
Not when they get the order confirmation, but when they get the second email saying that the product is shipping. It clearly says "e-mail confirming that it has dispatched your product". And they bill your credit card at that time.

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr. White writes that in the recent report from Science Weekly, Dr. Brooks found some chimps to be smarter than Negroes.The full report will be published in December. Also a genetic link between Negro genes and idleness.

Then I remembered a show which I had seen on television. Last summer I watched a PBS program about Koko the gorilla using sign language and so on, and among other things, they said this ape had an IQ of 85. The first thing that came to mind was the average American black IQ as mentioned in Charles Murray's The Bell Curve. Surely I couldn't have been the only one to take note, but I figured that if anyone complained, the newsmedia wouldn't respond because it would be just too damned embarrassing to publicize if the nignogs demanded that this segment be edited out.

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[thing12]

Yep, saw that... it was a government organized rally and there certainly weren't 10's of thousands of people there. So what does that tell you?

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[juhaz]

You don't look like bullies.

You ARE bullies. Or worse.

Start expecting next "terrorist" attack soon, people _don't_ like others sticking their big honking nose - no, no, wait, that wasn't nose, ah, yes, bombs, tanks, and the rest of that nice killing machinery and soldiers that's going to be shipped there to shred 'em to pieces - to their business.

WTC was bad, but after this I wouldn't condemn one either. They have just as much of a right to come and kill your on your home turd as you have to do the same. There's no difference between other terrorist organizations and the so-called US military, except one is bigger.

Bugger

[91degrees]

And what's up with slashdot. Why did that not seem to post the first time?

Weather

[fuzzywig]

well, here it's a lovley sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, about 10 centigrade, speaking of which, does anyone know what's the difference (if any) between Celsius and centigrade? I've only ever seen them used interchangably.

Re:Weather

[Dudio]

They are the same. For those too lazy to click through the link, the 100-degree thermometer (freezing point of water - boiling point of water) was called Centigrade until 1948, when it was renamed in honor of its inventor, Anders Celsuis. Presumably you can figure out on your own why they called the 100-grade thermometer "Centigrade".

Re:Weather

[Anonymous Coward]

Logic says: Centigrade = 100th of a grade.

Re:Weather

[carlos_benj]

speaking of which, does anyone know what's the difference (if any) between Celsius and centigrade?

The letters change after the 'e'?

Jealous are we?

[GeckoX]

Seems to me that you're a tad bit jealous that you DIDN'T subscribe, and thus didn't see the article early enough to snap one of those IPAQ's up for $10 dollars.

Besides, how much subscription could you have bought for the difference? A good lot without a doubt. But no, that's not value, it must be a thought provoking article that is worthy of your superior intellect...wait...why are you here then?

Oh, and no we don't value you because you submit stories, post comments and moderate, it's your big **** that keeps all of us coming back ;-)

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Brick and mortar stores have a human doing the
transaction who can serve as a sanity check
on prices.

Amazon doesn't have that benefit.

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[owen_b2]

I disagree - they were also offering iPAQ H5450s for £23 - this sounded like a loss-leading special offer, especially after a quick check on ebay showed that the 5450 should be less than double the price of a 1910, rather than over three times. I'd expect a pricing (maybe exchange rate?) mis-calculation to be consistent.

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[Anonymous Coward]

imo Bush needs to be ousted from power as well, but that will happen before too long anyway. (I mean seriously, this guy starts off by raping the environment and finishes by raping foreign countries...)

For the record, I am an American. So now I look like a bully for something I disagree with, great.

(posted anonymously so I can mod up someone wondering what "" is when it only shows up as "?")

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[91degrees]

Yes. Those were strange numbers whatever the reason. £7.52? Makes no senseat all.

duplicate

[leuk_he]

The best thing would be if a duplicate story would be posted tomorrow on /. when site xxxx (the register) posts about this.

priceless jokes are coming....

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[jabuzz]

The Kodak things was far more complicated. It was not obviously wrong, because in the first place it was advertised as special offer on the website. Secondly the mistake was made sometime on Friday afternoon, and surely it would have been fixed first thing Monday morning. Not so as I placed my order around 9:40am on Monday morning so I had good reason to believe that the price was genuine.

The decision by Kodak was clear, they could fight dozens of battles in the small claims courts around the country at a cost greater than selling the cameras at the advertised special offer price, face loosing at least some of them, and get lots of bad publicity, or just sell the cameras to thoses people who ordered them and don't risk setting a legal precidence.

I don't believe there has yet been a legal precidence set in the U.K. on this matter. However it is clear from the customers point of view that there has been offer, acceptance and consideration so it is a contract.

It is not clear exactly how the consideration (handing over of credit card details) differs between a website and bricks+morter shop, as a normal shop frequently does not deduct the money from your credit card the instant you make the purchase at the till (check your next bill if you don't believe me). Further more shops accept cheques and clearly the money does not leave your account until well after you have left the shop with the goods.

Therefore one can clearly argue that the consideration is handing over payment details and these being accepted by the website. Sending a reply out by email to say your order has been accepted further strengthens your case that consideration has taken place.

Clearly the websites defence is that consideration does not take place until they actually charge your credit card. However it is difficult to see how this can stand up when we compare it with a normal shop, where clearly the consideration does not take place at the time the card is charged but when they take the details.

The only difference is that in a shop you will have left with the goods before they realize their mistake, where in a website they still have them.

There may be some relevant precidents set if someone has purchased an item for home delivery,
left the shop and then recieved a phone call the next day to say sorry we made a mistake with the price you can't have it until you pay us some more money, and they have taken to court to enforce delivery.

The basics remain that there is no legal precident been set in the UK on this matter yet. Until there is we can be sure that websites will probably choose not to supply the goods. However in the meantime the exact legal position is far from clear.

Really it amazes me that web systems allow such mistakes to be made. I am sure most ./ers can think of a dozen ways you could design the system to make it difficult for the mistakes to happen in the first place and detect them automatically in the second place and suspend the items until investigated. In the first place if you can enter a retail price that is lower than the wholesale price without large warnings comming up requiring multiple click throughs to set the price at that level then the system is bust and they deserve to be out of pocket.

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but unless you plan on nuking bagdad, even the kids will be shooting your soldiers.

Damn. Who the fuck blabbed about the plan?

It would be really funny if they called your bluff

[iiioxx]

"sure, we'll give you 1,000,000 units at $0.00 - but that will be $20M for shipping and handling."

Now, if they offered the product at $0.00 with "Free Super Saver Shipping", the joke would be on them...

Bananas urban legend

[objekt]

http://www.snopes.com/business/deals/banana.htm

Might be true about buying a stereo, but probably not about buying a new car.

Fairness in advertising

[bheerssen]

(IANAL, Applies to US law....)

If you advertise something for sale at a given price, you must sell it at that price until you can change the erroneous add, sticker, sign, web page, what have you. Typos are no exception, it's your sign, you are responsible for what it says. The only exception is where a third party (eg: a newspaper) mistakely quotes a wrong price.

In this case, Amazon mistakenly listed iPods at a ridiculously low price - on their website. It's their mistake, their responsibility, and so they must honor that price for all customers who placed an order at that price. And that's everyone who managed to get an order in before they corrected the oversight.

Re:Fairness in advertising

[derch]

IANAL either, but I don't think contract law is as cut and dry as you like to think. Also, Amazon has in-house laywers who probably have a policy saying what will happen in the case of mispricing. They are laywers and know what they're doing.

From Amazon.com's Pricing policy:

With respect to items sold by Amazon.com, we cannot confirm the price of an item until you order; however, we do NOT charge your credit card until after your order has entered the shipping process. Despite our best efforts, a small number of the items in our catalog may be mispriced. Rest assured, however, that we verify prices of products sold and shipped by Amazon.com as part of our shipping procedures.

If an item's correct price is lower than our stated price, we charge the lower amount and ship you the item.

If an item's correct price is higher than our stated price, we will, at our discretion, either contact you for instructions before shipping or cancel your order and notify you of such cancellation.

From reading other sites such as CNET and the Register, the contract is made when your card is charged. On most printed ads, there is a disclaimer, however small saying the vendor is not responsible for typos and mispricing.

Re:Fairness in advertising

[91degrees]

Why!?

Who is actually harmed by a mispriced item? I started off without a PDA. I now have no PDA. Net loss - zero

Re:Fairness in advertising

[adelton]

The business harmed its competitors. Because if they have large ads about cheap stuff, it rides the mood of the buyers into those lower prices.

Re:Fairness in advertising

[wo1verin3]

>>Amazon mistakenly listed iPods at a ridiculously low

That had iPods as well? LINK ME!

j/k.

Re:Fairness in advertising

[91degrees]

But that just means that the competitors should sue for unfair trade practices. Not that Amazon should be obliged to pay its customers.

Re:Fairness in advertising

[bheerssen]

I wonder about the strength of this policy. Probably it varies from state to state. Companies can put almost anything they like in a public policy or agreement. That does not necessarily mean that they are protected by it.

There are two big reasons why this is so:

1) If I see an item advertised by a retailer at a certain price, I expect to pay that price. A disclaimer is not likely to catch my attention or change my mind if I do take notice. I suspect courts may feel the same way.

2) Companies must honor their advertised prices, otherwise there is nothing to stop a dishonest business from advertising whatever it wants so that customers will come to their store instead of another (more honest) competitor's. Once the customer is in the store, the chances of a sale is much better than they were before the customer entered (duh).

Re:Fairness in advertising

[bheerssen]

oops...

iPaqs, not iPods ;)

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[owen_b2]

Really it amazes me that web systems allow such mistakes to be made. I am sure most ./ers can think of a dozen ways you could design the system to make it difficult for the mistakes to happen in the first place and detect them automatically in the second place and suspend the items until investigated. In the first place if you can enter a retail price that is lower than the wholesale price without large warnings comming up requiring multiple click throughs to set the price at that level then the system is bust and they deserve to be out of pocket.

Exactly - it could be argued that Amazon have been negligent - how hard can it be to implement this check? They should suffer the consequences!

Amazon pulls out of these mistakes all the time

[drakkhen]

I recently bought a Treo for $0 on Amazon (and my friend, and my friend's freind, and all my co-workers, etc.). While it looked like the order went through and was processing for about 24 hours, it was then terminated and I got this:

From: Amazon.com
To: amazon2@spam.drakkhen.net
Date: 10 Jan 2003 10:57:12 -0800
Subject: Update: Your Amazon.com Order (#[unique ID removed])

Greetings from Amazon.com.

We are writing regarding your recent order for a cell phone which was placed through a link on an Amazon.com Associate web site. If you have already written to us regarding this order, please note that you will not receive a separate response.

Due to a technical error, the phone(s) you ordered had been mistakenly displayed with a price of $0.00:

"PCS Phone Handspring Treo 300 (Sprint)"

In accordance with our posted policies on pricing, we are unable to offer this item(s) for the incorrectly displayed price. Therefore, we have cancelled your order for the phone(s). We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.

Because of the additional information required to process orders for cell phones and service, at this time we are unable to offer the option to order this phone through an Associates site. However, you are welcome to place a new order for this phone by visiting our web site:

http://www.amazon.com/cellphones

Please note that service plans vary in price by both carrier and geographic location, and phones vary in price based upon the service plan with which they are combined. Without a service plan, the cell phone's price will be more expensive than a phone with a service plan.

Please note: this e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

Again, we regret any inconvenience this may have caused. We value your business and hope to see you again soon at Amazon.com.

Sincerely,

Customer Service Department Amazon.com

Now, even though I am one hell of an unemployed-recent-college-grad-in-the-IT-industry, I'm sure that Amazon is smarter than me. And if I were Amazon, I'd have some alarms that went off when the sales of one of the products shot through the roof from day to the next. And when those alarms went off, I'd investigate and probably cancel the orders if the price was improperly set.

The moral of the story is that if you come across one of these price blunders, you probably want to order one (or three, and sell them on eBay), and keep quiet.

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[Anonymous Coward]

You ARE bullies. Or worse.

No, we just aren't pussies. We will pissed off and we aren't going to take it anymore. This is pretty much our history. Its easy to say "can't we all just get along" and say "i am against war!". I mean, who the FUCK is not against war except idiots? But war is still necessary from time to time.

The sad part is, most of the people crying the loudest are just afraid of terrorists and what they will do once America attacks Iraq. Since we already KNOW what they will do, and have done. We are not worried terrorist attacks MIGHT happen, we know they will. Period. So its time to reduce the inventory of agents and hosting goverments.

Lots of people don't agree. At this point, after all this negociation, we simply don't care if you agree or not. We tried to get the UN to see the problem, but too many small countries are more concerned about the US's power. Half of the countries care more for their own financial interests in Iraq, the other half have their hands out waiting for us to buy them off. Only a few of us are doing the actual RIGHT THING, ie: US, Britain, Spain, Australia and a few others.

Let history decide. I, for one, feel very comfortable about how history will judge what we are doing now. The US isn't trying to dominate the world. Do some research, we have more military power than the rest of the world combined (yes, we really do). If we WANTED to take over world, we would have done it before now. Frankly, we don't WANT any other countries, we like ours just fine, thank you. We want a safe place to live and trade. We want to spread democracy (whether you like that or not).

Our past mistakes have generally been listening to to pacifists, and letting men like Saddam stay in power. You have already stated your position. You have already said you won't support us no matter what. Don't be so shocked when we no longer care what you think and no longer let you influence what we do. If you want us to give a damn what you think, you have to show us that you at least understand our concerns and have a modicum of empathy. If you can't, then you are no friend.

Price blunders on the Internet

[rpiquepa]

James Gilden is a travel journalist reporting for the Los Angeles Times. He once found a roundtrip fare on Travelocity for Los Angeles to Rome for $90. Of course, it was a mistake, but he booked it anyway. Read about his experience (free registration needed) with Travelocity. This company rejects 30 reservations per day (or about 10,000 per year) on a total of 10 million annual bookings. When you manipulate -- and refresh several times per day -- databases as big as the ones from Amazon or Travelocity, it's simply *normal* to see mistakes from time to time.

You think that's bad...

[rogued]

There was a glitch at a local gas station yesterday that had them selling gas at 16 cents per gallon... it went on basically all day, too.

it may be a typo today, but in 2006 it may not

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure in the future you'll hear "mommy, mommy, get me that cereal for me, it's got an full fledge embedded linux distribution on a cool watch, with wireless internet access"

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[Pharmboy]

imo Bush needs to be ousted from power as well, but that will happen before too long anyway. (I mean seriously, this guy starts off by raping the environment and finishes by raping foreign countries...)

Either 1) you are lying and you are not an American or 2) you are an idiot that doesn't understand how democracy works in America.

A president can not be "ousted" period. There are no recall procedures for federal offices. A president can be impeached and then forced from office, but considering everything the president does has to be passed by the majority of our elected representatives (and often by 60 in the senate) then he is acting in concert with the people. A 'high crime' has to be committed to begin an impeachment. There has been no crime whatsoever.

The vast majority of people agree with President Bush. Period. All this FUD about most disagreeing with him is just that, FUD. He has enjoyed the highest approval ratings in history. Higher than FDR. (read your history). You may disagree, and that is fine, but you need to clearly realize that you are in the minority. You have the right to disagree. This doesn't make your FUD true.

As to raping the environment, this is so unfounded its rediculous. This is straight out of the Democratic handbook. Unsubstantiated and FUD. Anwr? Yes, we should drill there. Look at the results of drilling in other areas of Alaska. So far, the most damage it has done is to create a population explosion of carabu. Really. Once again, check your facts. I could go on and on, but it really doesn't matter. You don't care about the truth.

But then again, it doesn't matter to people like you. You are not anti-war. You are not pro-environment, you are just anti-Bush. Facts don't matter. Reality doesn't matter. You just are so filled with hate for this man that no logic, facts or reality could ever matter.

Oh, for the record. I didn't vote for Bush. That doesn't make him a bad person and doesn't make everything he does wrong. In retrospect, I wish I had voted for him. I still don't agree with him all the time, but I respect him and believe he is doing what he feels is the morally correct thing to do.

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[guibaby]

As a US citizen (stop booing), why is a ruthless dictator in Bagdad, any of my business. Two hundred and some odd years ago, we had a similar problem with a dictator here. We kicked his ass out of our country. Yes, we had help, but the key is that we wanted it bad enough that we took the risk. We did it. We did not have some other country decide it was time for us to change our government.
I do not have a problem with the fighting for what I believe in, but what exactly is it that we are supposed to believe in, in this situation? Yes Saddam and his ilk (yes I used a word that I am not sure what it means) are sadistic SOBs, but what makes him any different that 100 other tyrants around the world.
Are we trying to prevent future terrorism or Saddam's support of terrorism? I believe in America we call this prior restraint. If there are crimes that Saddam has committed against us, let's define them.
Are we punishing Saddam for 9/11? It is relatively common knowledge that Saddam had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. Ossama Bin Laden thinks Saddam is almost as evil as he thinks we are.
Are we trying to get rid of the newly coined WMD? Then we probably need to go after other unstable governments that have them, like India, Pakistan, Korea, and Russia. Where to we get off telling people that can't have the same toys we have anyway? Who the hell do we think we are?
Do we need more oil? Then, raise the price of gas. I am happy to pay more at the pump, if it prevents people from dying.
Why is W declaring war on this guy? I thought only congress had the ability to declare war. Yes, Yes. War Powers Act...yadda..yadda..yadda..blah..blah..blah. The War Powers act was meant to be used in a situation like Peal Harbor, where we are attacked outright. It was not meant to be used so that the President could kill whoever he wanted for 90 days.
What ever happened to snipers? Why are we sending in a quarter of a million soldiers to wreak havoc on this country? If the real goal is to get rid of Saddam, wouldn't six SEALS and a couple of sniper rifles to just as good a job for less money.

It's pretty sad...

[Cranx]

...when this is news. This isn't news, folks. It's a mistake. Fold your fangs back and find your blood elsewhere. Mistakes happen; quit trying to "stick it to the man" all the goddamn time and talk about something important.

Retail Stores Generally Honor Price Tags

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't a case of a typo in your local AutoTrader, this is like having a $300.00 bottle of wine on the shelf for $30.00 ... guess what? Nine times out of ten any retail outfit will honor that price. Expensive? Not when you consider the value of a LIFELONG customer!

Re:Retail Stores Generally Honor Price Tags

[Anonymous Coward]

Nine times out of ten any retail outfit will honor that price.

A 90%-discount blunder will be honored 90% of the time? Those are conveniently easy to spew numbers. Cite sources, please.

Expensive? Not when you consider the value of a LIFELONG customer!

1. Will the customer cease to be lifelong if the price is not honored. Maybe, maybe not. 100% of the time? 50% of the time?

2. Because I successfully con them once on a typo, will that ensure that I am a lifelong customer? Maybe, maybe not. 100% of the time? 50% of the time?

I don't have the answers either. But then I'm not making quantitative claims.

Amazon won't honor sales

[Anonymous Coward]

The company said that its terms of use strictly state that no contract for sale has been formed until customers receive an e-mail stating that their order has shipped, meaning it has no obligation to hand out Hewlett-Packard iPaqs at rock-bottom prices. "We will be canceling orders made for the HP iPaq Pocket PCs at the incorrect price this morning," the company said in a statement.

http://news.com.com/2100-1019-993246.htm

Heh

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's about this time that a bunch of slashdot readers who

1) dislike patents
2) dislike lawsuits

will try to manipulate the system to take advantage of a mistake claiming that it is ILLEGAL not to give it to them at the price posted.

Whoever does this type of thing is a fucking moron, in my not so humble opinion.

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[Anonymous Coward]

You're kidding, right?

The H5450's is listed on amazon.com for $749.99, which makes it approximately 500 quid at current prices.

You really believe they'd sell a 500 quid PDA for £23 as "loss-leader"?

Oh, and ebay? Sheesh...

Why list as $10 and not �7.32?

[Basho]

Why convert the price to dollars in the headline? Quite frankly, the number "7.32" was close to being the most interesting part of this whole yawn of a story.

And besides, you got the math wrong... The exchange rate listed on my bank's web page is around 2.2 for the Sterling Pound, so that makes $16.91.

And before you correct me and say "No, its not 16 dollars; 7.32 pounds is more like 19 dollars", then someone else says "What? 7.32 pounds is exactly 22.87 dollars" realize that I don't live in Australia (the first number), or in the Barbados (the second number). Nope, I live in Canada where 7 pounds is around 16 dollars.

Just a reminder that the first 2 "dubya's" in "www" is "World Wide" which doesn't equal "USA". Although... maybe we can move from "french-fries" to "freedom-fries", and from "www.blah blah.org" to "usaww.blah blah.com"??

(Wow the political overtone of this posting took over pretty quickly, no?)

The key here

[Anonymous Coward]

The key here is to buy a few (dozen) for yourself and wait until it ships or you get a receipt. Once it is published and 10000s of people are ordering you won't get the deal.

So, if you see this type of thing what you need to do:
Order some for yourself, but don't tell anyone.

Did anybody else read IRAQ???

[Lispy]

Omg...im watching too much news.

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[Anonymous Coward]

Crikey!! I thought I'd rendered my thoughts entirely clearly on this point, old chum! Naturally I meant "than the hun will", which is why I said as much! But as a professional software engineer I simply abhor inefficiency.

Must dash!

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to tell you this, but that situation is not even remotly bait and switch. Bait and switch is the process of saying "get this car cd player for $50", but when you go in, they tell you that in order for it to work in your car, you must buy the one for $200, never offering to sell you the one in the ad. The situation you describe is a simple case of a mistake being made.

Re:Jealous are we? (uhh, of what?)

[gosand]

Seems to me that you're a tad bit jealous that you DIDN'T subscribe, and thus didn't see the article early enough to snap one of those IPAQ's up for $10 dollars.

Pssst. Nobody is getting them for $10.

I would only expect this story to be posted if it were indeed true, and it wasn't. They were not selling them for $10. They had a pricing error listed, they weren't actually selling them that cheaply. There are deal sites out there for things like this. People on them bitch all the time about how companies screw them by not honoring price mistakes online. No need to see it here, and certainly no need to pay to see it.

This is what it looked like

[no_demons]

You can take a look at what the page looked like here!

Personally, just couldn't get there fast enough. A friend of mine 'bought' four - seems unlikely that they'll honour the orders though!

CNet is reporting that Amazon will not honor price

[faust13]

No big surprise, CNet is reporting that Amazon will not honor price: http://news.com.com/2100-1019-993246.html

This is classic bait and switch

[privacyt]

Definition of bait and switch: Advertising goods or services without selling them as advertised. In Anglo-Saxon common law, this is a pretty standard definition. You won't find a jurisdiction in the USA or Great Britain that strays materially from that definition of bait and switch.

Therefore, Amazon is guilty of bait and switch if it offered the IPAQs for $10 but doesn't deliver.

Amazon is above the law.

[privacyt]

Amazon will of course be able to get away with this bait and switch because it is a massive multi-national corporation and, therefore, mostly above the law.

Don't believe me? Then try putting up a small ecommerce site that offers IPAQs for $10. Then tell your customers that you are not able to offer the IPAQs at that price but will be happy to sell them for a few hundred dollars instead. See if you'll be able to get away with it. I promise you won't.

And in the following story:

[Kelz]

They aren't going to honor it so stop bickering: http://news.com.com/2100-1019-993246.html

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[juhaz]

I don't need to be afraid of terrorists. We don't have them around here because we DON'T try to tell the rest of the world how to do their own business. Quite unlike the US.

UN doesn't see the problem because there is no problem. Those small countries aren't afraid of US's power (or of course they are, but outcome this war is not going to change that in one direction or the other), but they DO NOT HAVE any terrorist problems nor has Iraq ever bothered them in any way. It's (at least partly) your fault and your problem.

UN's word is the only one that counts on the international level, and if you are not listening to it, you are not doing a right thing, you're doing a WRONG THING.

Citizens of the Britain and Australia happen to think so too, dunno about Spain, even if their leaders are too busy kissing US ass to listen for their own voters - tells much about the so-called democracy, eh? And yes, we have quite similar system, it may suck but it's still better than the alternatives seen so far, so yes, I "like" it. Go on, spread it all you want, but don't do it with guns. Someone put to power by armed forces of another country is not how democracy is supposed to work, you know.

Your past mistakes have generally been PUTTING men like Saddam into power, and otherwise telling others what to do. Then cleaning up the mess. Don't do the first and you don't have to do the second, it's really that easy.

I can try to understand a concern if you show me a real one. Saddam is a bad man, but he's under vervy tight surveillance and can't do anything with an element of surprise, he's no threat.

And what exactly is it that I should feel empathy towards? Lives lost in wtc? Purely hypothetical lives lost in future if Saddam is not put out of power right now? Lives lost when arabs that lost relatives, home, etc. become terrorists take revenge against this and the Afghanistan war?

Why would I feel any more sympathy towards those than I should feel sympathy against iraqi or afghan civilian lives lost in your rampage trough middle east? Are US people somehow supposed to be better and more sympathy deserving people than rest of the homo sapiens on this planet?

And please tell me what is different when someone you call a "terrorist" kills people without consent of the others, and when the US kills people without consent of the others? Others being for example, the UN. Both are trying to hurt or scare the opposite so it does doing it, but neither will succeed and the circle of vengeance goes on forever.

Probably already been posted...

[Avenger546]

... but as I was reading the "Cable Con" article on MSNBC, the following link was at the bottom saying Amazon wouldn't fill these orders.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/887491.asp?0bl=-0&cp 1=1

Ah well...

In Brazil the legislation is a little bitter...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the price is visible you have to honor it. By law. This was made because the vendors here used to advertise something for a very low price and when you got there thay used to say it was a mistake or that sale is over, etc, just a scam to attratc the customer to the store. Now they have to think twice: is the price is advertised doesn't matter what price was. You have to honor the sale.

Stupid/Nitpicking thought

[Kaemaril]

According to the BBC article:

Amazon's conditions of use state there is no contract between the company and a customer until Amazon sends an e-mail confirming it has dispatched an order.

In fact, Amazon's exact wording is "No contract will subsist between you and Amazon.co.uk for the sale by it to you of any product unless and until Amazon.co.uk accepts your order by e-mail confirming that it has dispatched your product."

But Amazon ALSO says, in their online help, "You can cancel any item from your order, provided that we have not yet begun to process it."

But what if I want to cancel between the time they've started processing and the time they dispatch the item? It can't be an instantaneous process. For a certain time (which can be more than a few minutes, in my experience) they're "processing" the order. If no contract exists until they send me an e-mail saying it's been dispatched, I should be able to withdraw an item (or my entire order) while they're doing that processing, shouldn't I? Therefore, if Amazon won't let me withdraw or modify my order, doesn't that imply a contractual agreement has already been reached?

Re:Stupid/Nitpicking thought

[Anonymous Coward]

No, because you've committed to an irrevocable offer. It's perfectly valid (and enforceable) if a seller says, "Look, I'll hold the offer open at this price to you for the next 24 hours." During the next 24 hours, the buyer can accept the offer, but the seller cannot rescind. Technically, in this case, that's what happened. By virtue of the terms, the Amazon ad is an invitation to treat. You offer to purchase the item upon the terms set out by Amazon (i.e. irrevocable save for the cancellation procedures). Until Amazon accepts, there's no contract. But your contract is still irrevocable, i.e. Amazon can choose to accept at any time and you can't rescind.

Already anounced they won't honor the sales

[bigH2O]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/887491.asp?0bl=-0

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[Anonymous Coward]

Very well stated. Should be modded up, but this is slashdot - reason and logic rarely prevail here.

I often wonder how many of these clowns would be running around spewing out their horseshit if this were a democratic president in office. As you pointed out, these protests have nothing to do with foreign policy but everything to do with petty partisianship.

They will not honor the sales ...

[madsenj37]

They will not honor the sales, I know from experience. I once saw a flat screen tv for $150 when its normal price was $1000. Needless to say that it was suppossed to be $150 off of $1000 and not $150 total. They would not honor my purchase.

What you will get...

[Anonymous Coward]

Order one for 10 bucks and you will get what they call "apology_price_mistake". They don't allow employees to speak freely, and instead have "blurbs" for all phone and email conversations. The one dealing with mistakes is apology_price_mistake. It's been about 9 months since I quit (when they refused to fire me), but it goes something like...

Greetings from Amazon.com.

It has been brought to our attention that [ITEM] was recently advertised at the incorrect price of [PRICE]. Unfortunately, this price was mistakenly posted, and we will be unable to complete this purchase. Your order, [ORDER NUMBER], has been cancelled.

We invite you to place a new order for [ITEM] at the correct price. It can currently be found at:[URL].

We sincerely apologize for this mistake, and hope that your future Amazon.com purchases at more successful.

Sincerely

[Fake Name].

Newtons are $10 too

[cygnusx197]

Hey, I saw Newtons for $10.....
Uh....
Oh, right. That's not a typo.

Re:It would be really funny if they called your bl

[Havokmon]

"sure, we'll give you 1,000,000 units at $0.00 - but that will be $20M for shipping and handling."

.... and I'll gladly pay you on Tuesday...

Offer and Acceptance

[Sack]

This was not an 'offer' by Amazon which consumers are free to 'accept' and thereby form a binding contract. Rather, it was an 'invitation to negotiate' which really means nothing. The consumer can 'accept' but the offeror is free to reject the consumer. Amazon might decide to honor the purchases, but there's no obligation on their part to do so.

Another Reason to Pay for Slashdot

[PetoskeyGuy]

All those people who get to see articles "in the future" can get the goods. Worth the price of admission. :o)

Now if Slashdot Hosted a copy of all the links in the article too that only subscribers could get to it might be worth it. Even with a 20 or 30 minute delay I would miss most posts. I read /. at the end of the day - long after most linked sites are reduced to smoking craters or text only pages.

See Slashdot Subscribers see the Future article. And yes I've actually read the FAQ. Personally I think the Cache would be a great idea - especially if the site changes after ./ing. I want to know what the original link said!

I guess you're a lawyer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try pulling your head out of your ass, moron. There is no contract. It's simply a fucking bill.

Okay let me fix the analogy for the slow.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say you posted it to your website which you own. I guess you'd take the loss on your car.

Bullshit patrol....

I can relate to this...

[Joey7F]

I one time saw that Amazon mispriced a 4 dvd set that was supposed to be 75 dollars for 19.99. I ordered it for Dumb and Dumber alone. I figured that was worth 15 bucks to me, and if one of the next three (Long Kiss Goodnight, Spawn, and Mortal Kombat Annihilation) was worth 5 bucks I would be making out like a bandit.
.
.
.
Yeah, I still felt ripped off, but at least Amazon honored it :)

--Joey

IBM honour siimilar oops in Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM made a similar mistake here ... AU$2000 laptops offered for $200.

They emailed everyone to say their customer representative would be in touch, etc. But, oops again, they used CC: instead of BCC:! We've just had new privacy laws introduced here.

IBM say they'll honour the purchases.

Free Marketing ....

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case as it seems that Amazon did a mistake by publishing wrong price and will get away by not honouring the orders, But

1: What about all the email and postal addresses that were entered in its database because of this, Wouldn't it be fair on thier part to delete this data if they do not honour the orders.

2: What if some day a less well-known e-tailer does the same to get address and publicity.

I think Amazon should compensate the customers somehow.

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[Anonymous Coward]

what makes him any different that 100 other tyrants around the world.

Simply put, Saddam signed an agreement with the UN to stop producing WMD and get rid of his current stockpiles, back in 1991 as a condition of ending the Gulf War. After 12 years diplomatic attempts to enforce this agreement, we are going in and enforcing it by military means. Simple as that. It has nothing to do with oil, terrorists, the oppression or tyranny of Saddam's regime. It's simply enforcing something that he agreed to do.

End of story. So many fuckwits around the world completely ignore this fact (or never bother to read up and discover it). I hate the prospect of war, but I believe the US is in the right due to this one fact. Otherwise I would agree, we ought to stay home and leave him alone unless he becomes a real threat to us.

Cached version?

[unborracho]

I don't suppose anyone happened to mirror/cache it? (since it was taken down before it was posted on /.)

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[shyster]

A president can not be "ousted" period. There are no recall procedures for federal offices.

A president, or any other official, can be ousted thru a revolt. It has happened all throughout history, and I suspect it will happen at some point in the USA's future...though I don't expect that that time is now.

The vast majority of people agree with President Bush. Period.

The vast majority (about 70%) of Americans agree that war is necessary to remove Hussein. Fewer than half of Americans are strongly convinced that Bush's policies are correct, however.

Of course, the flip side is that over half of Americans believe that this will increase terrorism in the short term, and almost half think that it will increase terrorism in the long term as well.

International polls aren't nearly as favorable towards Bush or the USA.

All this FUD about most disagreeing with him is just that, FUD. He has enjoyed the highest approval ratings in history. Higher than FDR. (read your history).

His approval ratings were highest immediately after September 11. They've been declining since. Lately, they've dipped down to Clinton numbers. And approval of things other than the war on terrorism have been less than stellar.

Anwr? Yes, we should drill there. Look at the results of drilling in other areas of Alaska. So far, the most damage it has done is to create a population explosion of carabu [sic].

I suppose that depends on whether or not you think oil rigs and pipelines are a scenic addition. Oh, and don't forget the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

I still don't agree with [Bush] all the time, but I respect him and believe he is doing what he feels is the morally correct thing to do.

I believe Bush is doing what he feels is morally correct as well. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I share his morals or his view of world politics.

Re:Won't even be honored; like $99 TV

[brocheck]

You are only allowed to call foul if a retailer breaks a contract with you. (For example, if you bought a TV for $99 at a store, they gave you the TV and then said 'Woops. Give us more money.' youre in no obligation to pay them.)

However, with Amazon, the contract isn't established until you pay them and when your product is delivered. As they don't bill you until they ship your product they are under no obligation to take a huge loss here on an honest mistake.

Plus it says so in their T&C.

Been through this

[Scorchio]

One thing that differs between bricks & mortar shops and online outlets is automation. I was looking for a laptop computer last year and found one online for about £600, tax included. This was by far and away the best system in relation to price, so I placed an order. I first received back an email confirming the order, then later I received an email confirming the sale. It was a few days later when I received a phone call explaining that there'd been an error on the website, and the laptop should actually have cost more than double what it was listed for. They were discussing the matter with their lawyers and if I didn't want to cancel the order, I'd have to wait and see. Eventually I did get the laptop for the reduced price, and from what I understand, the automated confirmation of sale that was sent was effectively a binding contract for them to supply me that laptop at that price.

UK Rule looks for deceit or honest mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

dunno about US

Re:I could have saved you postage!

[guibaby]

If he agreed to it with the UN, shouldn't the UN be the one to enforce it. We are not the UN we are the US.

Last Post!

[alpg]

> I'm an idiot.. At least this [bug] took about 5 minutes to find..
Surely, Linus is talking about the kind of idiocy that others aspire to :-).
-- Bruce Perens in response to Linus Torvalds's

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